Rizzo’s Fire Read online

  “Yeah, so far, so good. Piece a cake. When I told my lieutenant I was heading over the bridge to meet you, he told me not to hurry back. It’s pretty relaxed where they have me working.”

  Rizzo shook his head and sipped at the double-rocks Dewar’s now before him. “I’d eat the gun if they ever tied me to a friggin’ computer all day. Christ.” His lips turned down. “You sure you’re okay with it?”

  “Better than okay,” McQueen answered. “I run complete profiles on everything going on anywhere in the department. I cross-reference crime stats and major cases, looking for patterns or emerging problems. Sometimes I troll for predators, pedophiles, stuff like that, but mostly I’m nosing in on everything the department’s up to. It’s the place to be, Joe. At least for now. They already bumped me up to second grade. That would never have happened so fast if I was still at the Six-Two, no matter how many cases we cleared.”

  Rizzo nodded and reached for his menu, flipping it open. “That’s true enough,” he said.

  “In my spare time, I scan through stuff, you know, looking for something I can capitalize on. Maybe something to help me catch somebody’s eye, make myself look good. And who knows, someday maybe I can move over to Policy and Planning, where I kinda always wanted to be.”

  “What is it, three weeks, a month you’re over there, and already you’re jockeyin’ for position? You learn fast, kid.”

  McQueen drained his drink. “Well,” he said, “that’s how it’s done. And it might not be too hard, either. Some of the guys I’ve met over there aren’t the brightest lights, if you know what I mean.”

  With a grin, Rizzo replied. “Yeah, well, don’t sell them short, and watch your back. Remember, they were all smart enough to hook their way into the Plaza.”

  “Like me, eh, Joe?” McQueen asked.

  As he watched Rizzo’s eyes, McQueen ran the details through his mind: how he and Rizzo had tracked down the runaway daughter of a local Brooklyn political power house, City Councilman William Daily. When closeted skeletons had turned up during the investigation, Rizzo had deftly utilized them to both his and McQueen’s advantage.

  But the skeletons had never been buried. Instead, they were still lurking, lurking as evidence in the form of a purloined Panasonic microcassette. Lurking in the basement of Joe Rizzo’s Bay Ridge home.

  The tape, McQueen thought. The damn tape that could alter the lives of everyone connected to it.

  “Yeah,” Rizzo replied, pulling McQueen from his thoughts. “Like you. But you belong over there, Mike. You’re a sharp guy, and a good cop. Maybe they aren’t.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Don’t thank me, I didn’t give you your brains. If they give you half a chance over there, you’ll be runnin’ your own squad in a few years.”

  “We’ll see,” McQueen said. “But hopefully I’m done with the streets. Almost eight years, that’s enough, and I still may try for the Academy. Teaching. I think I might like that.”

  “I can see you there, Mike. You look the part.”

  McQueen smiled. “Well, looks are important. Very political at the Plaza. They’re more a bunch of frustrated yuppies than they are cops.”

  “We learned a little somethin’ about politics with that runaway Daily kid, now didn’t we, Mikey?”

  McQueen’s face turned more somber. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

  They ordered their meals, then caught up on each other’s lives. Rizzo filled him in on Priscilla Jackson’s first few days at the Six-Two squad. McQueen laughed when Rizzo related her first encounter with the precinct Romeo, Nick Rossi.

  “That’s my Cil,” Mike said.

  Later, with McQueen sipping a cappuccino and Rizzo dark coffee, the older cop shifted in his seat and leaned slightly forward. When he spoke, it was in a soft, low voice.

  “We need to talk, kid,” he said.

  The change in mood wasn’t lost on McQueen. He placed his cup down on the white linen tablecloth and sat back in his seat.

  “Yeah. I figured,” he said, his blue eyes neutral.

  Rizzo smiled sadly. “Yeah. I figured you figured.”

  McQueen waved for the waiter.

  “Another straight-up Manhattan and Dewar’s, rocks,” he said. He turned back to Rizzo. “About the tape. Right?”

  Rizzo nodded. “Yeah. About the tape. I know we agreed to sit on it. For six months. Keep Councilman Daily’s dirty little secret for a while longer. In the meantime, we’d get you over to the Plaza, courtesy of Daily and his influence.”

  “Yes,” McQueen said, “and get you six months of phantom overtime to pad your pension.”

  Rizzo nodded again. “Yeah, but most importantly, to buy us some time. Distance ourselves from it all, so maybe we’d get under the radar.”

  The waiter arrived and placed their drinks on the table. McQueen reached for his.

  “How’s that overtime thing working out?” he asked.

  “Good,” Rizzo replied, with a shrug. “It ain’t exactly phantom, but that’s okay. It’s more legit this way. See, Daily set it up through a flunky of his at the Plaza. They call it Confidential Administrative Overtime. Daily’s man processes the O.T. personally, and it gets billed through the Homeland Security federal funding. City Finance never feels it, and it doesn’t show up on the yearly Six-Two overtime stats, so no red lights start flashin’ over there.”

  Sipping his second drink, McQueen spoke around the rim of the glass.

  “Do you have to actually do anything for it?” he asked.

  Rizzo answered as he reached for his Scotch. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s a large Middle Eastern presence on the northeast side of Bay Ridge. I live on the southwest side of the Ridge, Dyker Heights. So, every so often, I drive by the northeast. Check things out. Talk to some old-timers, the remnants of the Irish and Scandinavians that used to dominate that section of the neighborhood. And I talk to some of the Asian newcomers once in a while. Then I write out a report on the local Muslim activity and fax it over to Anti-terror Intelligence. They file it away, and everybody’s happy.”

  “So, okay,” McQueen said.

  Rizzo nodded. “Well, by my count, the six months for that tape we’re holdin’ comes up this February. Am I right?”

  McQueen shrugged. “Yeah. February.”

  Rizzo put down his rock glass and leaned across the table. When he spoke, McQueen could smell the liquor on his breath.

  “I need an extension, kid,” he said softly.

  Rizzo pretended not to notice the relief that flickered briefly in the young cop’s eyes. He kept his own face neutral.

  “Oh,” was all McQueen managed.

  “Yeah,” Rizzo said. “An extension. These friggin’ tuition loans won’t go away just because I retire, and it’ll be a couple a years before Marie is a doctor and can assume the loans Jen and me owe, never mind her own. Not to mention my other two girls.”

  “How much time, Joe?” McQueen asked casually.

  Rizzo spread his hands and cocked his head to the side. “Not sure,” he said. “A year, maybe—say, next October. Then with the administrative O.T., plus my regular O.T., I can get out with enough pension to carry the loans till the girls can take ’em off my hands. And by then, we’ll be far enough away from it that maybe no one will connect us to it when it does go public.”

  McQueen smiled. “I understand. To tell you the truth, I could use a little more time myself. I need to make some contacts, some friends at the Plaza. That way, when we put that tape into the right hands, if the shit hits the fan and Daily does realize we screwed him, at least I’ll have some allies. Some cover.”

  Rizzo nodded. “Sounds fair, Mike. After all, I’ll probably be out, my pension in hand, outta their reach. You should have some cover, too. Insurance, sorta.”

  McQueen drank deeply, draining the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “Insurance.”

  Later, leaving the restaurant after they’d eaten their lunch, Rizzo walked McQueen to his shiny black Mazda,
which sat parked at an expired meter on Old Fulton Street. They shook hands.

  “We’ll get it done,” Rizzo said solemnly. “Just a little later than we figured.”

  McQueen, two Manhattans sitting heavily on his eyelids, smiled sadly. “Yeah,” he said, “we’ll get it done.”

  PRISCILLA JACKSON took a seat on the heavy wooden chair beside Joe Rizzo’s squad room desk. She tossed the legal-size papers onto the cluttered desk surface.

  “Well, Joe,” she said, “I read all three.”

  Rizzo glanced at the sworn statements of Jimmy Cocca, Andy Hermann, and Nunzio Nottadomo, taken earlier by Six-Two personnel.

  “Good,” he said. “Now you know as much as I do. Good statements, weren’t they? Bobby Dee might not be the best bull on the squad, but he is the best statement taker. He gets all the info, short and sweet.”

  Priscilla nodded. “I’ll remember that. Now what? Do we start on that bar canvass?”

  Rizzo shook his head. “Not yet.” He looked at the wall clock. “It’s only twenty after four. If we do it, we should start callin’ around to the bars later, about eight or so. More likely to catch the same bartender who worked last night.”

  “Makes sense. So, what now?”

  Rizzo sat back in his seat. “Well,” he said, “I figure we discuss it. The shooting, I mean. I got a theory.”

  “Yeah, Mike told me about those theories of yours. So let’s hear it.”

  Nodding, Rizzo said, “Okay. By the way, Mike says ‘hi.’ Next time I’ll bring you along, he’d love to see ya.”

  “Good deal, Joe. So, what’s the theory?”

  “Okay, get comfortable,” Rizzo said. “You read the statements. Whadda we got? Incident starts in a well-known, popular local pizza joint, a place the shooter’s frequented over the last year. So, let’s assume he lives someplace close by. He wears jungle fatigues and drives a pickup truck. Schoenfeld and Rossi and the uniforms canvassed the residents of Seventieth Street, presumably where the truck was parked while the shooter ate his pizza then got his ass kicked by Tucci. Nobody they spoke to could say anyone livin’ on the block owns a pickup. This ain’t Texas, not too many noncommercial pickups around. And Cocca said the truck was clean, no writing or company logo on the door. Seventieth Street is all residential, mostly two-story, one-and two-family homes. Most families been living in those houses for generations. They all know one another. If there was a truck-driving, fatigue-wearin’ lunatic livin’ on the block, they’d all know about it. So, we can assume the shooter doesn’t live on Seventieth Street.”

  Priscilla smiled. “All this assumin’ could be risky,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, it usually is, but hear me out. So, Tucci smacks the shooter around. Shooter makes his threat, the young guys leave. Nunzio says the shooter leaves the pizzeria less than a minute after the kids. Nunzio goes in the back room, starts getting ready to close, cleans the booths and hits the head. Next he knows, the radio cars are lightin’ up the avenue.”

  Rizzo paused, taking a Nicorette from his pocket. Priscilla watched impatiently as he fumbled with the packaging.

  “Damn, Joe,” she said harshly, “give it here.”

  She took the gum and stripped the backing, pushing the Nicorette partially through the foil and handing it back to him. “Now tell me the fuckin’ theory before my first pension check gets here.”

  Rizzo pushed the gum into his mouth.

  “Guy runs out of the store and around the corner. Then, about two minutes later, he’s a block south at Seventy-first Street, waiting for Tucci to come out of Ben’s candy store.” Rizzo paused. “Question: Where’d he get the rifle from so fast? Assumin’, as we are, that he don’t live right there, right on Seventieth Street.”

  Priscilla shrugged. “The truck, I guess. He got it out of the truck.”

  Rizzo pointed at her. “Bingo. Where else? Now, answer this: Who’s runnin’ around Brooklyn in a pickup truck wearing jungle fatigues and packing a thirty-oh-six rifle?”

  Priscilla smiled slowly. “A Great White Hunter,” she said.

  “Once again, bingo. A hunter. While you were readin’ the statements, I went online. Hunting season just got under way upstate New York, parts a Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Deer, mostly. Some bear. This asshole is a hunter. That explains the brown boots. He’s not a military nut, probably was wearin’ Timberlands. And his heavy camouflage hunting jacket woulda been too hot for the drive back home from whatever-the-fuck woods he was in, so he slipped on a lightweight civvies Thinsulate. He was probably boozin’ the whole three-day weekend, maybe even in the truck driving home. Probably struck out, Bambi outsmarted him and he’s coming back empty-handed. Instead of going home and smackin’ the old lady around, he maybe stops local for some more booze, then figures he’ll grab a couple a slices of Nunzio’s Sicilian. When Tucci steps on his friggin’ foot, three days of macho bullshit erupts in the guy’s squirrel brain. Then the kid TKO’s him without breakin’ a sweat, and it’s just too much. The guy feels his dick shrinkin’ by the minute, so he figures he’ll grab his rifle and grow some of it back. See?”

  “So we start checkin’ out the gun shops, hunting clubs, what ever. Right?” Priscilla asked.

  He nodded. “Exactly. Guy probably needs to show photo I.D. for his ammo buys. We could get lucky. There can’t be more than a half-dozen hunting joints in the whole borough, only one or two in the precinct. And if the shooter is a Bensonhurst boy like we figure, he probably shops local. Most people around here do, the whole neighborhood is like a small town.”

  “Yeah,” Priscilla said. “A town in the freakin’ Ozarks. Ten years I worked a radio car, two in the South Bronx, eight more up and down Manhattan. I saw a lot of crazy shit, Joe, but this is the first street shooting I ever seen where a rifle was the weapon of choice.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what got me started. That and the camouflaged jungle fatigues. We don’t get many shootings in the Six-Two, but when we do, it’s usually a mob hit. Head shots, up close and personal. And always with a handgun.”

  “So,” Priscilla said. “I guess we drop the idea of checkin’ the bars.”

  “For now,” he answered. “It’s still a good idea. But I think we’ll put it on hold for a while. What we need is a sketch of this guy. I want to go see the boss, D’Antonio. The Swede. Have him call over to Borough, set up the police artist with the three eyeballs and the vic. Then we can hit the gun shops and the bars with a sketch of the guy in our hands. See where we get lucky first.”

  “Okay,” Priscilla said, standing. “Let’s go see the boss.”

  Rizzo smiled. “Not just yet, Cil,” he said. “I think I see a lawyer, and he’s coming this way.”

  She turned. A tall, disheveled-looking man with sandy brown hair, a worn blue suit, and wire-rimmed glasses was nearing Rizzo’s desk, a uniformed officer beside him.

  “Hey, Joe,” the cop said. “This guy’s a lawyer. Said he needs to talk to you.”

  “Okay, Randy, thanks.” Rizzo stood and indicated the chair Priscilla had just vacated.

  “Have a seat, Counselor,” he said easily. “Forgive me for not shaking hands. Germs and all.”

  The man’s lips turned down, but he sat.

  “I’m Sergeant Rizzo. My partner here, Detective Jackson.”

  The man cleared his throat. “Dan Webster,” he said. “I’m Bruce Jacoby’s attorney.”

  Rizzo laughed. “Well, imagine that? Daniel Webster, eh? Any ‘Devil and …’ jokes you ain’t heard yet?”

  Webster smiled weakly. “Probably not,” he said.

  “Okay then,” Rizzo said, sitting down again. “What can I do for you, Mr. Webster?”

  “Well, Sergeant, my client is very upset. He says you and your partner, presumably her, came to his home last night. He says you threatened him. He also said—”

  Rizzo held up a hand and silenced the man. “I don’t really give a fuck what he said, Counselor, and neither does she. Let’s get down to it: Jacoby
has four prior arrests for public lewdness. He copped to three of ’em, one was dropped. That vic was twelve years old and her parents didn’t want her playing in the sewer with all the shit bags down at the Criminal Court house. I got four positive I.D.’s from victims in this case. They picked your guy out from a photo array. One of the vics is a thirty-something-year-old teacher. Spends a lotta time partying at Club Med or wherever the fuck, and she gave us some details on your guy’s schlong. Sorta like an expert opinion, you could say. Plus, I already spoke to Brucie’s boss. Seems like every time a daylight incident took place, Brucie was either off or out sick that day.”

  Here Rizzo paused and looked up at Priscilla, winking at her discreetly.

  “So,” he continued, “if you came here to threaten me, Counselor, my boss is across the squad room in his office. Name’s Vince D’Antonio. Lieutenant Vince D’Antonio. He’ll be glad to listen to your complaint, give you the telephone number of Civilian Review, in case you don’t have it memorized, and then he’ll throw you the fuck outta here.”

  Rizzo leaned in closer to the man. “But,” he said, his voice turning softer, “if you came here to talk, we can do that, too.”

  The lawyer, a few years older than Rizzo, smiled.

  “It’s oddly refreshing to do business with an old-timer, Sergeant,” he said. “Most of the younger cops are so tentative and nervous, they almost appear paranoid.”

  Rizzo laughed. “So, okay. What’s the deal?”

  The lawyer shifted the briefcase he held on his lap and glanced at his wristwatch.

  “Well,” he said, “in view of what you’ve said, and assuming it’s accurate …”

  Rizzo nodded. “It’s accurate. You can leave here with victim statements and copies of Brucie’s work timesheets, if you want ’em.”

  Webster sighed. “Won’t be necessary. Mr. Jacoby is willing to surrender to the District Attorney’s Office. I just have one favor to ask.”

  “Tell me,” Rizzo said.

  “Mr. Jacoby is particularly close to his mother. This Saturday is her seventieth birthday. He’d like to be with her to celebrate. I’m asking for a surrender date after that. Say, next Monday.”