The Punishing Game (4 page)

When Cullen and McAlary arrived at the gym the next morning, Nino Biaggi’s assistant trainer, Angel Sierra, was already there, as was Bellucci, who was sitting on the stairs sipping coffee and reading an
Astonishing X-Men
comic.

McAlary walked over to Bellucci. “How long have you been here?”

“Half hour. My grandmother don’t let me read comics in the house. She thinks they’ll rot my brain.” He laughed. “She’s probably right.”

As they all started up the steps, a Dodge Charger pulled up and double parked. Out stepped a woman in her thirties wearing a plain blue blouse and black slacks.

“Ryan McAlary?” she called out.

McAlary stopped and looked down at her. “That’d be me.”

“I was wondering if I could talk to you.” She took out her wallet, flipped it open, and showed him her gold shield. “I’m Detective Damiano from the Seventy-Seventh Precinct.”

“Come inside, detective.”

Damiano followed them up the stairs. As they entered the gym, McAlary pointed toward an empty chair and said, “Just give me a few minutes.”

“Sure.”

Instead of taking a seat, she leaned against the wall by the door. Seconds later, several other young men carrying gym bags walked in.

Sierra gestured toward them. “Let’s all gather up,” he said, and the young boxers quickly huddled around the two trainers.

“I know how you guys felt about Nino,” said Sierra, a heavy-set Hispanic man in his forties. “I share your loss. After my boxing career was over, Nino let me work his corner when nobody else would offer me squat.” He looked off a moment, a pained look in his face. Then he refocused. “I do have a bit of good news for you guys, though. Ryan here has agreed to help me train you for as long as it takes to sell the gym. After that, you can look for a new trainer or continue with me at a different gym. That okay with you guys?”

The dozen young boxers looked at each other. A couple of them nodded, then the rest gave Sierra thumbs up.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get to work!”

And the gym quickly settled into a familiar rhythm. The boxers started their stretching routines or went right to pounding the bags. Skip ropes slapped the floor. Cullen chose the speed bag, easily getting it moving in a
fast rhythm. As he was hitting the bag, he glanced at the detective. She wasn’t Kate Upton, but he found her pretty in a tomboyish sort of way.

Now that he was free, McAlary waved Damiano over. After talking with her for a few minutes, he pointed at Cullen. As the detective headed over, Cullen picked up the pace on the bag, hoping to impress her with his hand speed. He ended his drill by slamming the bag hard enough to knock it off its mooring, then grabbed a towel and mopped his face. If he’d had a comb handy, he would have run it through his hair.

Damiano did not seem impressed. “Got a minute?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Flipping open a pad, she took a Bic pen from behind her ear and started in. “Mr. Cullen, I’m lead on the Biaggi murder. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Call me Danny. And your first name is?”

Ignoring the question, she said, “I know you’ve been asked a lot of things already, so I’ll try not to repeat too much. As far as I can tell, Biaggi had no enemies to speak of. From all accounts, he was very well-liked in the community. What about you and your trainer? Can you think of any reason someone would want to shoot either of you?”

Cullen looked surprised. “Not a single one,” he said. “If this was a drive-by between gangs, why are you asking about me and Ryan?”

“Just covering all bases. What bothers me is that the gangs hadn’t shown any previous signs of animosity.”

Cullen frowned.
That’s what Boff had said.

“The shooting was initiated by unsubs in the Land Rover, correct?” Damiano asked.

“Unsubs?”

“Sorry. The first shots were fired by people in the car.”

Cullen nodded. “Yes. The Jamaicans didn’t shoot back until after the car was speeding away.”

Damiano flipped to another page and read notes already there. “Have you been taking the same route from the Biaggi house to the gym and back each day?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“At about the same time?”

Cullen narrowed his eyes. Where was she going with this? “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” She made a note. “I understand you’re from
Las Vegas, but your father grew up here in the city. Did you ever live in New York at any time?”

“No. Is that important?”

“I’m just checking to see if you left any enemies behind.”

Cullen caught her drift now. “I have a feeling you aren’t buying the official line about a drive-by shooting,” he said.

She looked up from her pad. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Was that a yes or a no?”

Letting out a sigh, the detective closed her pad. “Mr. Cullen, this is probably a bad environment to speak to you in. Maybe we can talk again when you’re in a less combative mood.”

Cullen tapped a glove on his chest. “Look at me, Detective. I’m a fighter. I’m always combative.” Then putting on his best smile, he softened his voice. “But I’m never combative over lunch. Why don’t you give me your number? We can talk about this better over a good meal.”

In reply, Damiano took out her wallet and handed him a business card. “That’s the precinct address and phone number,” she said. “If you want to talk some more, we can do it there.”

Cullen leaned in closer to her. “You sure I can’t interest you in lunch?”

“Very sure.” Damiano headed for the door.

“Think it over!” he called after her. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

When Boff hadn’t shown up by dinnertime, Cullen and McAlary began to think maybe they’d been wrong. As they entered the Biaggi kitchen, Cullen inhaled the smell of a fragrant Irish stew, one of his father’s favorite dishes. It looked like Michelle was almost ready to carry it to the table.

Before he could sit down, though, McAlary prodded him to call Boff again. Getting voice mail, Cullen hung up, sat down, and shrugged at McAlary.

“Let’s keep our fingers crossed,” McAlary said.

While Michelle ladled stew into their bowls, Kate filled their glasses with iced tea, then sat down with them. “Michelle,” she said, “I was surprised Sonny Ricci wasn’t at the funeral or the burial.”

“Me, too,” Michelle replied as she took her seat at the head of the table. “Sonny and Nino had some kind of falling out. But I still thought he’d show up. I mean, wow, they’d been through so much together.”

McAlary turned to Cullen. “Nino was the first fighter willing to sign with Ricci’s new promotional company. Promoting our trilogy put Ricci on the map.” Then he shrugged. “But I learned long ago that loyalty in this sport is rare.”

When the doorbell rang, Kate looked at Michelle. “Did you invite someone else?”

Michelle shook her head. “Let me go see.” A minute later, she called from the living room, “Danny, a Frank Boff is here to see you!”

McAlary dropped his fork into his bowl. “Mother of God, if this don’t beat all!”

Into the kitchen behind Michelle came the Great Boffer. He was dressed for hot weather in a blue Knicks T-shirt, baggy short pants, and sneakers with no socks. Other than Boff’s height of six-foot five and his curious costume, he was kind of ordinary looking. The only thing distinctive about him was his intense, steel-blue eyes, which Cullen knew from experience never missed a thing.

Surveying the table with its steaming bowls of stew, Boff laid one hand over his heart and said in his most sincere voice, “Gosh, if I’d known you were eating, I wouldn’t have barged in like this.”

McAlary spit out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s six o’clock, Boff. What the bloody hell did expect us to be doing at six o’clock?”

Boff spread his hands. “I hadn’t thought about that. I’m very sorry. I’ll come back after you’re done.” He turned to go.

“It’s all right, Mr. Boff,” Michelle said. “You’re welcome to stay.”

With a broad smile, Boff turned back. “Please call me Frank. That’s what all my friends call me.”

Kate looked up from her stew. “You don’t have any friends,” she said.

“Danny’s my friend! Right, pal?”

“Absolutely not.”

“We have plenty of Irish stew,” Michelle said. “If you’re hungry, er…Frank, you’re welcome to eat with us.”

“He’s
always
hungry,” Cullen said sourly.

“Well,” the unwelcome guest said in his most sincere voice, “if it’s not too much of an imposition…I’d
love
to have some of that
heavenly
-smelling stew. The food on the airplane was so awful I just couldn’t eat it.” He grabbed the seat right next to Cullen, who immediately inched his chair as far away from him as possible.

“I’ve never once seen you turn down food,” Cullen said. “No matter how vile it was.”

Boff held one finger up. “I don’t eat brains. I draw the line there.”

“Why’s that, Frank?” Michelle asked. She filled a bowl and brought it to him.

“I eat enough of them in court.” He laughed. Nobody else did.

Not having picked up his fork yet, McAlary stood up. “I’ll finish the rest of my stew later, Michelle. I have some phone calls to make.”

Kate pointed to her husband’s chair. “Sit your butt right back down,” she said. “Why are you going to let Boff ruin your dinner?”

“Sorry. Appetite’s gone.”

She gave her husband a sharp look. “You’ll stay at the table until we’re all done.”

McAlary sat back down without a word of protest.

After shoveling in a mouthful of stew, Boff said, “This is excellent stew, Michelle. I’m half Irish, you know.”

“What’s the other half?” she asked.

“Jewish. The Jew in me tries to make me feel guilty about the work I do. But the Irishman is a tough son-of-a-gun and overrides him.” He paused. “Sort of like Kate just did to Ryan.”

Michelle smiled. “What do you do for a living, Frank?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Really? That sounds exciting. What kind of cases do you handle?”

Catching McAlary and Cullen giving him dagger eyes, Boff held up both hands as if surrendering. “Let’s not talk business at a gathering of good friends,” he said.

Michelle served chocolate layer cake for dessert. Boff had two helpings with whipped cream. He ate so fast you would have thought it was his first meal in a week.

“You’re a wonderful cook,” he said, licking the last stain of whipped cream off his fork. “In my family, I try to cook whenever I can because my lovely wife works hard enough. She’s a kindergarten teacher and has the patience of a saint.”

Cullen smirked. “She needs all the patience she can muster to put up with you.”

Boff let that one slide off his back. After finishing his second piece of cake, he scraped off some stray whipped cream around the edge of the plate, sucked the fork clean again, and then pointed it at Cullen. “As I told you once before, Danny,” his voice as smooth as the whipped cream, “Jenny loves me for my good traits and overlooks what she considers my somewhat less admirable qualities. Which we won’t mention at the dinner table. Michelle, if you have coffee, I’d love some. Cream, no sugar.”

After the table had been cleared, McAlary and Cullen took a walk down St. Mark’s Avenue, hoping against all odds to get away from Boff. He tagged along.

“That was a great dinner,” he said. “I’m glad I stopped by.”

“We aren’t,” Cullen said.

“You will be when I save your life again.”

McAlary blew out a weary sigh. “Why do you have such a problem accepting what the police said?”

“Because cops consistently go for the obvious angle and do shoddy work.”

“In this case, it
was
obvious,” Cullen said. “It was a drive-by shooting between gangs. End of story.”

Boff put on his best condescending smile. “Seen from your very limited perspective on all things criminal, yes, that would seem to be true. But I thought you might’ve learned from our last encounter that things on the Dark Side aren’t always what they appear to be.”

Cullen stopped and looked at him. “So even if this was staged—which I don’t for a minute believe—how do you know the target wasn’t Biaggi. Or even Ryan?”

“It’s called having good sources,” Boff replied. “I still have plenty of them in
Brooklyn. From my days here with the DEA and as an investigator. They told me it was highly unlikely anybody would want to kill Biaggi because he’s done a lot of work for the community and was widely-admired as a courageous boxer. Ryan’s from Las Vegas. He hasn’t been here long enough to make any enemies. By process of elimination, Danny, that leaves you.” 

“I’ve never lived here, either, for chrissake,” Cullen protested. “Why me?”

“I’m not exactly sure yet. But my instincts tell me it was you. It could be possible that your Israeli enemies in Vegas called the Russian mob here in Brighton Beach and asked for a favor. That being said, I tend to doubt it. If the Russians wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

“So again,
why me?
”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“But I don’t understand that,” Cullen said. “Why you actually came. I’m not going to hire you. And you’ve made it crystal clear that unlike movie and TV investigators, you don’t take on cases for noble causes or work for free.”

Boff pointed up the street. “Did you know that when I grew up in the
Bronx, I had a rich aunt who lived on this very street? About five blocks down. This was once a very ritzy section of Brooklyn.”

McAlary rubbed his forehead. “Hells bells, Boff, you’re giving me a headache. Just tell us why you’re here already.”

“Well, it’s a bit complicated.”

“We have the time,” McAlary snapped back. “Let’s hear it.”

Boff suddenly bent down to tie his Converse Chuck Taylor high tops. Cullen wasn’t surprised that he was so obviously trying to be evasive. What
was
surprising was that for the first time since Cullen had known the man, Boff seemed uncomfortable.

“It’s like this,” Boff said, not looking up as he tied his sneakers. “My wife Jenny is a very devout Christian. That makes it difficult for her to reconcile my…how should I phrase this…?”

McAlary filled in the blank. “Despicable, amoral behavior. Bordering on criminal.”

Ignoring the jab, Boff stood back up. “A couple weeks ago, Jenny went to a church function. I was unable to attend because I was busy unmaking a case against my client, an alleged arsonist accused of burning down Salvation Army shelters.”

McAlary made a face. “What kind of man would burn down shelters for the homeless?”

“I wouldn’t know. My client was innocent.”

“How’d you get him off?” Cullen asked.

“The proper term is acquitted,” Boff said. “And by the way, my client was also homeless, although thankfully his brother had the money to pay my fee.”

“Get on with it!” McAlary was sounding more and more exasperated.

“The client had a friend from the shelters who was more than a little off his rocker. I talked with the friend and, lo and behold, he confessed to burning down the shelters. So my client walked.”

McAlary stepped toward Boff and wagged his forefinger at him. “I bet you put that idea in the poor man’s head.”

“I did nothing of the sort! What a thought. That would be unethical, never mind grounds to have my investigator’s license revoked. I just pointed out to the loony that he’d been in the same shelters as my client when they burned down. Then I asked him if he was sure
he
wasn’t the one who did it. That’s when he confessed.”

“You’re despicable,” Cullen said. “You have no compassion whatsoever.”

“On the contrary! I agreed to help defend the poor loony soul for a nominal fee. His lawyer and I got him acquitted by reason of insanity. Now he sleeps in a nice clean bed and gets three squares a day in a hospital for the criminally insane. I’m proud I was able to improve the quality of that man’s life.”

Cullen sighed. “Chrissake. Get back to the point about Jenny.”

“Oh, right,” Boff said, as if it had slipped his mind. “After the church service, the priest called Jenny aside…. Say, did I ever tell you where I rank priests on my list of the lowest life forms on earth?”

“Can’t you
ever
tell a story straight?” Cullen said.

“Life doesn’t proceed in a straightforward fashion, so why should a story? Anyway, priests rank fourth from the top, after lawyers, doctors, and FBI agents.”

“I’m going back,” McAlary said. “I’ve had all of this I can stomach.”

“The priest told my impressionable wife that if she didn’t reform me, there was no way I’d be joining her in heaven because of the work I do.”

McAlary turned and smirked. “Well, he got that right.”

“I beg to differ. Defending people accused of a crime is a right my clients have in the Constitution. I perform a necessary service. Occasionally I even get an innocent person acquitted. Although that’s neither here nor there.” He finally seemed to notice that McAlary was about to walk away. “The point is that that lowlife priest upset Jenny very much. I was thinking about sending some of my mob friends to visit the penguin, but decided it might only make matters worse.”

That’s when Cullen lost it. “Get to the goddam, friggin’ point!”

“All right. When Jenny heard you’d been shot, she asked me to come to
New York and investigate. For some reason, Danny, she likes you. Who can understand women? She wants me to—this is painful to say—do pro bono work on this case in order to gain favor with God. What’s worse, this is just the beginning of her plan to rehabilitate my image with the Man.”

Hearing that, McAlary smiled. “Working on your own dime, huh? How much do you ordinarily make an hour?”

“One-fifty, plus expenses. And worth every penny.”

“So if you put in a six-hour day here wasting your time, it’ll cost you nine hundred.”

“On paper, yes, that would be correct.”

McAlary smirked. “I’m almost tempted to let you look into this ridiculous theory of yours, just so you’ll blow a shitload of money on free hours.”

“Oh, come on, Ryan,” Cullen said. “I don’t want Boff snooping into my life again.”

“I said
almost
.”

Boff looked from one to the other. “Here’s something for both of you to consider,” he said. “Especially you, Danny. You’re well aware that my instincts are almost always right on the money. So what if somebody really is trying to kill you?”