Queens Noir (36 page)

"Hey, Williams, whadaya doing here? It's me, Frankie.
From the Fearsome Foursome, remember? I'm on your side.
One of the good guys." He tried a weak grin.

"Oh no, Frankie. You done crossed over to the other side
a long time ago." Williams shook his head. "My Organized
Retail Crime Task Force has been watchin' you, m'boy. We
got videotapes, still photos, receipts with your fingerprints on
'em-you name it, we got it. Your ass is fried." He made a kissing noise. "You can kiss that pension goodbye."

Frankie felt dizzy. "But-but my kids. My wife ..."

"Tsk, tsk. You should have thought about your family
while you were committing fraud."

Frankie wanted to throw up. The cops were hustling the
wailing women out the door. He was gratified to see Mohammed trussed up like a chicken in ankle cuffs and handcuffsthe guy should have known better than to fight a cop, Frankie
thought. Meanwhile, he was standing there with his hands behind his back like some two-bit perp. "Come on, Williams.
We can work this out. You're a cop, I'm a cop ..."

"Oh no, that's where you're wrong, Frankie. You're no cop.
Not no more. Least, not when we get through with you. I'd
say you were the next candidate for protective custody." He
squinted at Frankie. "'Less you wanna go straight into population and spend your days playin' Drop the Soap with the
Bloods and Crips." He grinned sorrowfully.

Frankie scrambled frantically for the magic words that
would get him out of this mess. "No, hey, look, you came in
here to make a bust, I'm a cop, I'm helping you out ..." he
tried.

Williams shook his head. His voice became businesslike.
"No good. You're caught, Hernandez. Game over."

"Williams, please. For old times' sake?" Frankie was disgusted with himself for pleading, but he was out of options.

Williams gave Frankie a pitiful glance. "I'll tell you what
I can do. For old times' sake." Frankie looked at him eagerly.
"I'll let you ride in the back of the RMP instead of the van
with the rest of the perps."

Williams handed Frankie over to the small female officer
with the vest. "Guzman, bring this one in. Let 'im ride in the
back of your car."

Officer Guzman wrinkled her nose as though smelling
something rotting. But all she said was, "Yes, sir."

As she shoved him out the door, Frankie turned back and
yelled, "Fuck you, Goatfucker! Chinga to madre!"

Guzman clucked her tongue at him. "That's no way to
talk. Captain Williams would never do that to his mother.
He's a very religious man, you know."

"I want my delegate!" Frankie snarled. "Call the PBA and
tell them to get my delegate down here pronto."

"Don't worry," Guzman said. "We'll make the call once
we get to the precinct." She lowered her voice confidentially.
"Although the way I hear it, the delegate's not gonna be able
to do much for you. Your wife's already down there, singing
like a canary." She glanced sideways at him. "Course, if you
wanna tell me about it, I can maybe work out a little something for you."

Frankie wanted to cry and scream and throw up, all at the
same time. How could she think he'd fall for that trick? He'd
used it often enough himself-get a perp to talk by pretending his confederate was giving him up. But what if it was true?
What if Maria was selling him down the river even while he was
being hustled into the backseat of the RMP? He wouldn't put
it past her. The blood of generations of corrupt Mexican politicians ran through her veins. She had probably learned how to
sell out her partner while other kids were playing hopscotch.

Within ten minutes, Frankie was being hustled toward an
interrogation room in the 115th Precinct. Jackson Heights
was just a stone's throw from Woodside, so it didn't take long.
As he passed one of the other interrogation rooms, he glanced
inside and saw his wife sitting at a table, chatting with a bunch
of detectives. Her jacket was draped over her shoulders in defense against the air-conditioning, and she warmed her hands
around a steaming paper cup of coffee.

"Maria, you bitch!" he screamed as he passed the window.

Guzman shoved him into the next room and plunked him
into a hard chair. "You wanna tell me about it?" she asked,
pulling out a notebook.

"You bet," Frankie said. "It was all her idea."

Guzman held up her hand. "You sure you don't want to
wait for your delegate before you talk to me? You don't want
me to Mirandize you?"

"Hell no!" Frankie replied. He missed the small smile
that curled up at the corner of Guzman's mouth for a fleeting moment.

"Okay, then," she said. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

Officer Guzman opened the door to the neighboring interrogation room. "Thanks for coming down and waiting, Maria,"
she said. "I'm sorry. It doesn't look too good for Frankie. He's
confessed to a lot of crimes, and he didn't wait for his delegate
before he talked."

Maria shook her head. "My father told me not to marry
him, but I thought I knew better. What am I going to tell the
kids?"

Guzman patted her hand. "I know it looks tough now, but
you'll make it through. Can you take your children to your
parents' house tonight? It's only a matter of time before the
press comes knocking on your door."

"That's a good idea, thanks. Does Frankie want to see me
now?"

"I don't think that would be for the best. You can see him
once he's booked."

Maria stood up. "Well. Thanks for everything."

"You're welcome. And it will all work out. You'll see."

You bet it will, Maria thought.

As she slid behind the wheel of her car, she mentally ran
through the contents of her home office. She had packed up
the laptop, scanner, and printer and stashed them in the trunk
of her car as soon as Roberta Guzman called. She'd had a
mental escape plan in place since the day she and Frankie
had gotten involved in what she thought of as "refunding for
profit."

Her family and Roberta's had been close for at least two generations, but the two women hadn't seen each other very
often since Roberta went on the job. She had let Maria know
that she would have to take a step back because she was going
to play it straight. (Roberta's family had treated her like the
proverbial black sheep-What's wrong with the girl that she isn't
open to taking bribes? How could we have gone so wrong?)

Maria only pretended to understand her friend's choices. She
heard about Roberta's successes in the department through
her parents and aunts and uncles, but like her relatives, she
always puzzled over why her longtime friend would work
harder than she had to.

Well, no matter. She'd held Roberta's marker from when
they were teenagers. Maria held the key to a moment of youthful indiscretion on Roberta's part, and Roberta owed her for
keeping her mouth shut. She knew she'd collect on it someday, but she'd always hoped it would be for something bigger
than this harmless little scam.

She fingered the tickets in her handbag. Tomorrow morning
at 6 a.m., she and the kids were taking off for a long-overdue
vacation to visit relatives in Mexico. Depending on what happened with Frankie, she might just stay there.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

August 30, 2006

Jackson Heights, N.Y.-Roberta Guzman, an NYPD
spokeswoman, revealed today that Francisco Hernandez,
the police officer who was arrested last month on multiple
counts of fraud and was to be prosecuted under the Federal
RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations)
statute for conspiring with al-Qaeda terrorists to resell
stolen merchandise as part of a fundraising scheme, has committed suicide while in protective custody at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center. "Mr. Hernandez
appears to have wound a bedsheet around the top bunk in
his cell and used it to strangle himself," Guzman reported
at a press conference late yesterday afternoon.

Other members of the alleged fraud ring include Alba
Terremoto, Pedro Volcan, and Mohammed al-Yakub, who
is also suspected of having links to al-Qaeda and is charged
with funneling profits from illegally sold merchandise into
terrorist activities.

amzi Saleh wondered how this nation had become
the most powerful in the world. The despicable little
urchins who turned up to harass him at Richmond
Hill High, where he taught math to ninth graders, were indifferent to his lessons. They cheated him of his time on earth.

It was with no little pleasure that he contemplated being an instrument of their demise, those cocksure boys and
strutting girls. Now that winter had set in and the sidewalks
were treacherous with ice, he was spared the exposed flesh
that assaulted him every warm day. What sort of parents let
their daughters out wearing less than what would pass for
acceptable underwear at home? And the boys were little better. He found their lack of modesty and wayward attitudes
blasphemous.

Ramzi pulled the collar of his overcoat tight against a biting wind. Above him, the 7 train rattled by, its brakes screeching as it pulled into the Roosevelt Avenue station. Beneath
his feet the sidewalk trembled. Two levels underground, a subway train, maybe the E he'd just gotten off, was pulling up or
leaving.

He knew no one here, at least not in person. He kept
walking, and soon caught a whiff of fennel as he approached
his destination: the pawn seller on 74th Street. It seemed that Satan himself had a hand in his being here. How else could
he explain the impulse that had propelled him to the E train?
He told himself that he was going to pray, but when he got to
Sutphin Boulevard, instead of leaving the station and making
his way along Jamaica Avenue toward Azis's mosque tucked
away on 146th Street, he'd raced onto the E, which brought
him straight here to Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights.

This neighborhood meant peril. At how many points
along the way could he have abandoned his quest and gone to
Azis's, or even home to Liberty Avenue? But now his destination was Little India. He stopped outside the paan shop. Why
not? He'd resisted for as long as he could, but the first time
he'd slid the paan inside his cheek to an explosion of flavor,
he'd known he was lost.

He was supposed to avoid his countrymen and spend his
time among the gora. Not that Richmond Hill was Infidel
Central. But many of the Asians there were West Indians who
had lived in the Caribbean for generations before coming to
America. The neighborhood was mixed, not exclusive, and
while the roti shops had few rivals, the paan could not compete. He should take it home. He should eat it unobserved in
his recliner, but he couldn't.

At times it seemed to Ramzi that America offered nothing
but temptation. Could a man be wise, let alone moral, living among such sirens? Was his sophisticated Jackson Heights
palate evidence that the Great Satan had corrupted him? Perhaps he should buy two paan? One for now, and one he could
put in the fridge for after dinner.

As he pressed toward the paan seller, his worst fear was
realized: He recognized a man ahead of him in the line. They
had been at camp together in Afghanistan. The fellow licked
his lips and inched closer to the booth as if mesmerized by the vendor's red-gummed grin and nimble fingers as he smeared
red kathha and chuna on a fresh betel leaf. The veins in Ramzi's
neck throbbed. Even if the fellow recognized him, they would
not acknowledge each other.

His breath quickened. Their time at camp was long ago,
and he wondered if this man was part of the same mission? He
knew little about his task other than that he was to assimilate
and wait. On that glorious day of victory, when, with the rest
of the world, he'd watched the Twin Towers fall, he'd hoped
his time among the infidels would end. But it was not to be.

The man from camp took his paan, looked around with
the sly delight of a thief, and, using his thumb, thrust it inside
his cheek and disappeared into the throng.

The pawn seller remembered Ramzi. "Meetha pawn, no coconut," he said, his eyes bright with the pride of a man who
knows his customers.

Despite his inward panic at being known, Ramzi smiled
and nodded. "How do you do it?" he asked. "Every time, your
paan is delicious."

"It is all in the balance of chuna and kathha," the pawn
seller said, rolling his head from side to side as he smeared a
leaf with his special masala.

The proportion of betel nut to lime paste was crucial to
a good paan, but Ramzi came to this fellow for his perfect
masala-no one around mixed the spices and chutneys quite
like he did. Now he behaved as if Ramzi was one of his regulars.
Was that good or bad? To leave one or two footprints might
be for the best. Ramzi imagined the Queens Chronicle story
following his mission ... They'd quote this man. A paan seller
on 74th Street described Ramzi Saleh as a polite man, quiet and
predictable. "He loved my meetha paan, but it was always, `Hold
the coconut."' Ramzi smiled to himself. Not a bad epitaph.