Rizzo’s Fire Read online

  “No,” Rizzo said, shaking his head. “Fuck him and his mother’s birthday. He wants a favor from me, he surrenders to me. Not the D.A. Me. Me and my partner. If you can’t agree to that, me and Jackson here get in the car and go grab him right now. I don’t need anybody’s permission to lock up some shit-head.”

  Rizzo smiled and leaned back in his seat. “You know, Counselor, just between us old-timers.”

  Webster drummed his fingers on the briefcase, weighing the options.

  “And if we agree, you’ll give him till Monday?”

  Rizzo leaned forward, close to the lawyer. “Hell yes, Counselor,” he said. “I’ll even send the old gal a friggin’ birthday card.”

  LIEUTENANT VINCE D’Antonio looked across his desk to Jackson, then Rizzo.

  “And you figure this shooting warrants a police artist, Joe?” he asked.

  Rizzo nodded. “Absolutely. It’d be a shame to waste these witnesses here. All four of ’em saw the guy in the pizza store, under those fluorescents, while everybody was still relatively calm. We can get a good composite from them. Then me and Cil show the sketch around the bars and gun shops. We’re sure to get a hit.”

  Vince D’Antonio, the fifty-three-year-old commanding officer of the Six-Two detective squad, sat back in his chair and frowned. His fair skin, blue eyes, and blond hair had earned him the nickname “Swede.”

  “This might be a tough sell,” D’Antonio said after a moment. “After all, this isn’t a murderer or a rapist or child molester. Borough Command may nix it.”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Try, Vince. All I’m askin’. And remember, after Tucci got shot, the guy pointed the rifle at Cocca’s chest and worked the trigger. It was a bolt-action rifle, not a semi, so it didn’t fire. But we can still make an attempt murder out of it. That makes two counts attempted murder, criminal use of a firearm, assault one, and whatever else the D.A. can find in the penal law.”

  “I read the DD-fives. I know the story.” D’Antonio paused and rubbed at his eye. “I noticed you didn’t talk to the victim yet, this Larry Tucci kid.”

  “Gary,” Rizzo said. “Gary Tucci.”

  D’Antonio nodded. “Yeah. Gary. What ever. Before we go to Borough, shouldn’t you at least talk to the kid?”

  “We tried. But they had to dig bullet and cement fragments out of his foot, then try to put it back together. He was under the knife when we got to Lutheran.” Rizzo looked at his watch. “Doc told me we could see the kid to night. Why don’t you think about the artist request, Vince. Me and Cil will talk to the kid. We’ll find out when he’s getting discharged. Then the artist can sit down with all four. One-shot deal. You get us that sketch, boss, we’ll get you the shooter.”

  After a moment, D’Antonio nodded. “Okay. Talk to the kid first. In a couple a days, if we need to, maybe we can get it done.”

  Rizzo pushed his chair back and stood up. Jackson did the same. “Thanks. You know I never ask you for this kinda shit. But Borough is tough. I don’t have anybody left I can call over there to cash in a favor.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” D’Antonio said. “At least there’s one place in the department that doesn’t owe you.”

  “Yeah,” Rizzo answered. “Speakin’ of which, Ronnie Torres called me about twenty minutes ago. He does owe me, so he pushed that shell casing to the head of the line. He took a partial print from it. Not enough to run for an I.D., but he lifted enough points to call a match if we print a suspect. You get us that sketch, we put a name to the face, lock him up and print him. Then we nail him with the witnesses and the print. Case closed.”

  D’Antonio nodded and reached for his pen. Turning back to his paperwork, he spoke once more.

  “Talk to the victim, Joe. Then we’ll see.”

  “Okay, boss, thanks,” Rizzo said, turning to leave.

  D’Antonio looked up at them. “By the way, how are you two getting along?”

  “Great,” Rizzo said. “No problem.”

  D’Antonio turned his eyes to Priscilla. “And you, Jackson?”

  “Fine, Lieutenant. Just fine,” she said.

  “He treating you okay?” D’Antonio asked.

  “Yeah, boss, he’s glad to have me. I may not be as pretty as McQueen was, but I’m a hell of a lot smarter.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “SO, GARY,” RIZZO ASKED in the cramped confines of Gary Tucci’s hospital room. “How you doing?”

  It was nine-fifteen, just after the official end of visiting hours. Rizzo and Jackson, after making their introductions, had taken seats next to the large hospital bed. Tucci, pale and drained-looking, sat propped against three pillows, his wounded foot elevated and bandaged.

  The young man tried to smile. “I’ve had better nights, Sarge,” he said. “Lot better.”

  “I’ll bet,” Rizzo said. “Then again, you had worse, too. Like for instance, last night—when this guy shot you.”

  Tucci nodded, his lips tightly compressed.

  Rizzo shifted in his seat, pulling out his note pad.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Gary,” Priscilla asked. “Start from the beginning at the pizza place.”

  “Yeah,” Rizzo added, clicking his Parker. “Tell us.”

  The young man sighed and nodded again. After a moment, he began his narrative, adding nothing Rizzo and Priscilla hadn’t heard from the other witnesses. When he was finished, his eyes were moist with the memory, but no tears escaped.

  Rizzo shook his head. “Sorry, kid,” he said, “but sometimes shit like this happens.”

  The words brought a pensive look to the man’s face. “Yeah,” Tucci said. “Shit does happen.”

  “Ever see this guy before Monday?” Priscilla asked.

  “No. Never.”

  “Do you think you can I.D. him?”

  “Absolutely.” Here Tucci’s expression hardened. “I got close enough to ’im to clean his clock pretty friggin’ good. That uppercut was always my money punch.”

  Now Rizzo spoke. “Yeah,” he said, “Nunzio was pretty impressed. Said you knocked the guy up on his toes.”

  Tucci nodded. “Damned right. And you know what? I pulled that punch. I didn’t wanna knock the guy’s jaw up into the base of his goddamned skull. I figured he was just an asshole with too many drinks in him. If I’da known he was gonna cripple me, I’da beat him to death.”

  Rizzo reached out and patted Tucci on his uninjured leg. “You handled it just right. You couldn’t know the guy’d come gunnin’ for you.”

  Tucci shook his head angrily. “He told me he’d kill me, said it right out loud. Son of a bitch, if I believed him, I woulda pounded his face into that pizza booth.”

  “Okay, Gary,” Priscilla said gently. “Don’t be getting all wound up, popping a stitch or spiking your pressure.”

  “Okay,” Tucci said, “okay.” Then he smiled. “At least I cracked the asshole’s teeth for him. I can settle for that, I guess.”

  “Good for you,” Priscilla said.

  Rizzo rubbed an eye, soothing a slight tic. “Broke his teeth?” he asked. “How you know that?”

  “I heard it,” Tucci said. “When I connected with that short right uppercut and slammed his mouth shut. I’ve heard it before, in the ring. If a guy don’t bite down right on his mouthpiece and he takes a hard hit, ’specially an uppercut, he can bust a tooth or two. This guy in the pizza place, he didn’t have a mouthpiece. And from the sound, I’d say he cracked more than one tooth. I hope he loses ’em, the bastard.”

  Rizzo sat back and turned to Priscilla.

  “The kid just saved us some shoe leather, Cil,” he said. Then, turning back to Tucci, added, “We just may get this guy. Lock his ass up. He may have some rough nights ahead of him in stir on Riker’s Island.”

  Rizzo stood. “We’ll see,” he said.

  Later, riding down in the elevator, Rizzo turned to Priscilla.

  “You know,” he said, “I was so impressed with your bar idea and my hunter theory, I
coulda missed this.”

  Priscilla nodded. “Yeah. Busted teeth. The guy had to get treated for that.”

  “Yeah,” Rizzo responded. “And if our other idea ’bout him being local is correct, then dollars to doughnuts his family dentist is from the neighborhood, too. Hell, my guy practices about two blocks from where I live. Has his office right on the lower level of his house on Tenth Avenue.”

  “So we track him through the dentists, not the bars or hunting leads,” Priscilla said.

  “Yes,” Rizzo said as they reached the lobby and left the elevator. “The bar and hunter stuff, that was all theoretical. The busted teeth, that’s fact. We go with fact over theory every time.”

  As they neared the gray Impala, parked at the side of the ambulance entrance ramp, Rizzo shook his head.

  “Now I gotta go back to Vince and tell him to hold off on that artist request. And him the guy pushin’ us to see the vic before running off half cocked, like a couple a half-assed rookies.”

  Priscilla laughed, her face beaming. “Instead a just one half-assed rookie, eh, Joe?” she said.

  “Yeah,” Rizzo answered, pointedly glancing behind his partner. “But from where I’m standin’, there ain’t nothin’ half-assed about you, honey.”

  Again Priscilla laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Karen mentions that once in a while. With the same dopey grin you got now.”

  WHEN PRISCILLA arrived at the Six-Two at four p.m. Wednesday, she found her partner at his desk, sipping coffee from a paper cup and leafing idly through a Daily News.

  As she reached the desk, Rizzo greeted her. She sat down. “I thought I’d find you workin’ the horn to all the dentists in the precinct,” she said to him. “Isn’t that the excuse you used to grab some early overtime? Takin’ a little break, are we?”

  “Nope,” Rizzo said. “Done with that. I hit gold on the eleventh call. Guy over on Twenty-fourth Avenue.” He looked down at the scribbled note sitting atop a messy pile of papers on his desk. “A Dr. William Davenport, DDS. I spoke to his receptionist or secretary or what ever they call themselves. She said they had to schedule an emergency appointment for nine a.m. Tuesday morning, two hours before their regular office hours. The call came in Monday night through the doc’s ser vice.”

  Priscilla smiled. “Let me guess: couple of broken teeth?”

  Rizzo nodded. “Yep. Two cracked molars and a chipped incisor.” He paused and sipped at his coffee. “Wanna hear the best part?”

  Priscilla shifted in her seat, crossing her leg. “It gets better?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Guy said he broke the teeth in a little accident he had. Seems he was out huntin’ all weekend, and Monday night, guess what happened?”

  “A bear smacked his dumb-ass head and busted his teeth?” Priscilla asked.

  “Not exactly,” Rizzo said. “Seems he tripped on something and banged his jaw. On the tailgate of his pickup truck.”

  “Well, well.”

  “Yeah. And right about then, the woman I was talkin’ to started getting a little uptight. Thought she was fuckin’ with doctor-patient stuff, so she put the doc on. His office hours end at five today. We got an appointment with him then.” Rizzo peered at Priscilla’s mouth. “You got any dental issues? Maybe we can get you a free cleaning or something.”

  She stood up. “I’ll pass, Joe. Tell you what, I have to fill out the union forms so they can switch me over from the PBA. I need to get them to the delegate’s in-box today. So how far is it to this guy’s office?”

  “Ten minutes. You got plenty of time. I’ll be waitin’ here.”

  JUST BEFORE five, Rizzo at the wheel, the two detectives drove toward the dental office of Dr. William Davenport.

  “So how’s the redecorating project going?” Rizzo asked.

  “Okay, I guess. Don’t ask what it’s gonna cost. Me and Karen coulda done the whole deal, painted all four rooms in a couple of days. For two, three hundred bucks.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d be happy I was you,” Rizzo said. “Get the in-laws to pick up the tab, avoid all that aggravation and mess. You oughta count your blessings.”

  “Yeah, I know. And they can afford it, that’s for sure. But this is just an apartment, not a condo. Lot a money to spend on something we don’t own.”

  Rizzo slowed for a light and glanced over at his partner.

  “What kinda building?” he asked.

  “Nice old brownstone. On East Thirty-ninth off Third Avenue. We’re up on the second floor with one other tenant.”

  Rizzo nodded, watching the traffic light. “Sounds nice. But like I tell my kids, rent is money down the drain. You gotta own something, build up the equity. The old Italians around here, the old-timers from the other side, you give ’em a choice between twenty thousand shares of some stock and a quarter acre of land, they’ll go with the land every time.”

  “Depending on the stock, real estate might be the way to go,” Priscilla said. “But right now I’m not looking to buy. Karen will never leave Manhattan, she’s too into it. And anything in the city is way out of my league, dollar-wise.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Rizzo said. “But Karen’s a high-priced lawyer making big bucks. Proportion it out and buy something soon. You won’t regret it.”

  After a moment or two of silence, Priscilla replied. “I’d rather wait. We’ll do one-year leases, then see,” she said.

  Rizzo grunted and eased the car forward as the light changed.

  “Sounds like cold feet to me,” he said. “You lookin’ to keep the door half open, are you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not really. But there’s no hurry with anything. We can chill for a while.”

  “Okay, Partner,” Rizzo said. “But remember this, somethin’ else I tell my girls. You buy together, better odds you stay together. Financial ties have saved more marriages than Dear Abby.”

  “I think Dear Abby is dead, Joe,” Priscilla said.

  “Well, then, Dear Whoever-the-fuck. You get my point. You tangle up your finances, it’s more of a commitment. So if Karen burns the toast once too often, you can’t just say, ‘Fuck off, Sweetheart,’ and head for the door. It’s like insurance, Cil. Believe me.”

  “Well, Karen and I aren’t married.”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Civil-unioned, married, what ever. Same shit.”

  Priscilla shook her head. “We ain’t anything yet. Just together, that’s all. I get my medical and pension through the job, she gets hers through the law firm. Don’t be gettin’ me overcommitted here.”

  Rizzo glanced at her as he wove through the traffic on Twenty-fourth Avenue.

  “Didn’t you recently tell me you were done trollin’ around? When that redheaded nurse was droolin’ over you?”

  “Sure,” she said with a small smile. “But you never know. That’s all I’m saying—you never know.”

  “I get it, Cil. So, you’re the guy in this couple, eh?”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Let me explain somethin’; there ain’t no guy. That’s sorta the point, Joe. We’re both female. Don’t be stereotyping my situation to fit your fantasies. Didn’t Mike warn you about me, Partner?”

  “You bet. He warned me I’d have your shoe up my ass the first week we worked together.”

  Priscilla laughed with Rizzo. “You’re right on schedule, paesan,” she said, shaking her head gently. “Right on schedule.”

  He slowed the car and angled in toward the curb to an open parking space. “This is it,” he said, glancing at the address on the building. Then, turning to his partner, added, “Just remember what I said. About the finances. Insurance, Cil. Doesn’t hurt to have some insurance.”

  She released her shoulder harness and reached for the door handle. “Okay, Daddy,” she said. “I got it. In a year or so, they may reach me on the sergeant’s list. Sooner maybe, with all those retirements comin’ up. Then maybe I can swing my end of the nut a little better. So, we’ll see.”

  Rizzo shut down the Impala’s engine and nodded.r />
  “Good,” he said. “Now let’s go to work.”

  “TO BE perfectly honest, Sergeant Rizzo, he’s never been one of my favorite patients.”

  Dr. Davenport, a silver-haired, stout man of about sixty, gazed across his broad, neat desk at Rizzo and Jackson.

  “And I can’t say I’m overly surprised to have police asking about him.”

  Rizzo slipped his note pad from the inner pocket of his jacket.

  “Why is that, Doctor?” he asked. “He ever get rough in here?”

  The dentist shook his head. “No, not really. But he’s … unpleasant. A bit nasty with my staff. He usually seems in a bad mood, angry about something. So it’s no real surprise that his injuries were sustained in an altercation and not a fall, as he told me.”

  Priscilla leaned in slightly.

  “Can you describe him, sir?” she asked. “Height, weight, age, features?”

  Davenport shrugged. “Certainly,” he said. He then gave a description matching those given by the witnesses and victim.

  The detectives exchanged glances, then Rizzo clicked his Parker.

  “What was that name and address, Doc?” he asked.

  Davenport stood. “His name is Carl Jurgens,” he said. “I’ll need to get his folder for the rest. My assistant was supposed to put it on my desk before she left, but I guess she forgot. Give me a moment.”

  “Sure,” Rizzo said pleasantly. “Thanks.”

  When the dentist left the room, Rizzo leaned over to Priscilla. “Good help is hard to find,” he said.

  “Be thankful you don’t have that problem,” she answered.

  When Davenport returned, Rizzo jotted down Jurgens’s home address and phone number. Then he raised his eyes to the man.

  “How’s he pay you, Doc?” Rizzo asked. “Cash, check, insurance?”

  He quickly scanned the folder’s contents.

  “Well, let me see … my staff usually handles billing.” After a moment, he found it. “Here it is,” he said. “Insurance. He pays a small yearly deductible, then we accept his insurance assignment as payment in full.”