Tragic (32 page)

At the mention of Greg, his boyfriend’s face flashed in Corcione’s mind. Suddenly, love overwhelmed his fear and in that moment he found his courage. “You know what I think, Joey?”

Arching an eyebrow at the sudden resolve in Corcione’s voice, Barros smirked and shook his head. “No, Jackie. What
do
you think?”

“I think you’re queer and still in the closet—that’s why you wanted a look at my junk.”

Corcione only had a moment to enjoy the look of shock and rage that came over Barros’s face before the most intense pain he’d never even tried to imagine shot from one point of his body and into every molecule of his being. It hurt so much that he couldn’t even scream before he blacked out.

The next thing he knew, somebody was slapping him. “Wake up, funny boy,” Barros snarled as he struck him again with the flat of his hand. “I want the information now, or I’m going to light you up like a fucking Christmas tree. I had my electric friend here set on low; now it’s on high and you are not going to like what it does one little bit.”

A part of Corcione’s mind screamed at him to tell Barros anything he wanted to know.
Sooner or later you’re going to cave, so why not save yourself the pain. He’s going to kill you anyway. Do you want to suffer first?

However, as the coward in Jackie Corcione pleaded for him to get it over with, something else in him was fighting back.
What does it matter? You’ve lost Greg. And why? Because you wanted
to live like a prince, sure, but that was theft; the point of no return was when Charlie Vitteli decided that Vince Carlotta had to die. Up yours, Charlie, your dog Barros can kill me but I’m not giving you two a goddamned thing!

Corcione was about to say just that and geared up to resist the next bout of pain when he noticed movement behind Barros, who had his back to the front door. Greg was creeping up and getting ready to pounce.

“Fuck you, Barros!” Corcione shouted and spit at his attacker to distract him.

Enraged, Barros almost missed the warning sign when his victim’s eyes suddenly focused on something over his shoulder. But quick as thought, he spun around, jabbing with the stun gun.

A well-built younger man in a gray sweat suit leaped back just in time to avoid being electrocuted. But Barros attacked without hesitation, thrusting the weapon like a fencer. He was fast, vicious, experienced, and normally would have overwhelmed his opponent. But the former Navy SEAL in front of him, blocking and twisting away from the weapon, was better trained, in better shape, fearless, and mad as hell.

Greg was also patient, and though at first surprised by the assassin’s speed and skill, he focused on frustrating his opponent’s attack, letting him wear himself down in the flurry of initial attacks, and then methodically countering while watching for his opportunities. He saw an opening and chop-blocked a thrust with his right hand, slightly turning his opponent, exposing his back; he stepped in and delivered a short, powerful, roundhouse punch to the man’s kidney area.

Barros grunted in pain and swung wildly, but the younger man had already retreated outside of his reach. The blow to his lower back made it difficult to catch his breath. Many years had passed, and a lot of blood had been shed since he’d last doubted the outcome of a fight, but he now recognized the chill of possible defeat in his bones. It made him more desperate as he slashed with a backhand motion.

Rather than retreat, this time Greg stepped inside the arc of Barros’s swing and delivered such a hard two-handed block into the other man’s arm that it stopped the motion as surely as if Barros had struck a wall. Then, before Barros could recover from the shock, Greg’s right hand slid down to his opponent’s right wrist, extending it out, locking the elbow. He then stepped forward with his left leg, twisting into the blow he delivered with his left forearm into the back of his opponent’s locked elbow.

There was an audible snap as the joint dislocated, followed by an even louder scream. The stun gun went clattering across the floor as Greg followed up with a side kick to the back of Barros’s knee, driving him to the ground, where momentum carried his face into the coffee table. The killer groaned as he pushed himself up from the table and knelt on his knees, swaying slightly.

Greg stood directly behind him, every bit of his training telling him to finish the job now. But he’d finished too many jobs in the not-so-distant past, and he’d sworn when they put him on a medical evacuation plane out of Kabul that he was done killing. So he hesitated. “Get on the ground, asshole,” he demanded. “Or I’ll break your fucking neck.”

Barros didn’t turn around. “Please, no more,” he begged. “I got a family . . . daughters, they have queer friends. You can turn me in to the cops.”

“Don’t trust him!” Corcione yelled.

Corcione’s shout distracted Greg just long enough for Barros to spin on one knee, slashing at his legs with his razor. This time when Greg tried to leap out of the way, he wasn’t quite fast enough. He felt a sharp, burning pain halfway up his thigh and when he glanced down, the leg of his sweatpants was cut clean and already red with blood. He knew he needed to end the fight quickly or risk passing out from blood loss.

However, Barros had other plans. Bleeding profusely from his mangled nose, he jumped to his feet and came at Greg scything his blade back and forth so rapidly that the polished steel looked
like a silver blur. Suddenly the assassin’s hand shot forward and Greg turned his face just fast enough to avoid losing an eye, though the razor laid open a cheek.

Sensing a change in the momentum, Barros pressed his attack as he forced Greg to retreat past where Corcione sat strapped in his chair. Greg planted his wounded leg and appeared to stumble slightly, which caused Barros to shout triumphantly as he leaped forward to deliver a fatal cut. However, his progress was suddenly diverted when Corcione threw himself and the chair he sat in sideways into him.

The move gave Greg just enough time to regain his footing. He stepped inside of Barros’s next forehand slash and pinned his opponent’s arm and weapon against the side of his body. Using his free hand, he chopped into the dislocated elbow, causing Barros to scream in pain and rage.

The scream was cut short when Greg drove the web of his left hand into the man’s exposed throat. He then grabbed Barros’s larynx, squeezing like an iron vise as he shoved up and back, propelling the two of them through the screen door to the balcony. He drove Barros into the railing so hard that it knocked the wind out of the killer.

Barros gasped and the straight razor fell at his feet. But Greg continued to bend him backward over the rail toward the street fifteen floors below.

“Mercy!” Barros cried in a strangled voice.

Greg stopped pushing for a moment, but it was only to look in the defeated man’s eyes and say, “Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice . . .” He smiled. “I don’t get burned twice.” He gave a little shove and Barros was gone with a shriek that ended abruptly with a crash that sounded like a bomb had gone off fifteen stories below. A woman screamed as a car alarm started bleating, and then several more people screamed and shouted.

Greg looked over the railing. Approximately 180 feet from the balcony railing, what had once been Joey Barros was sticking half
in and half out of a Mercedes windshield. He’d gone in headfirst so only the lower half of his body was visible, but that was enough to show the man was beyond dead.

Suddenly faint, Greg stumbled back from the railing. He hobbled over to an area on the roof where he liked to work out. He picked up a piece of exercise tubing that he swiftly tied around his leg above the wound as a tourniquet. But he knew he was still losing blood and needed help fast.

Returning to the doorway, Greg picked up the razor and stumbled over to where Corcione still lay on his side, struggling to get free. “Hold on a second, Jackie,” he gasped and then sliced through the tape binding his boyfriend’s wrists and ankles. He then slumped back against the couch, his legs splayed in front of him as he pulled on the tubing to slow the flow of blood.

Corcione crawled over to him on his hands and knees. “God, you’re hurt!”

Greg smiled weakly. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Barros?”

“He left by the back door.”

“Back door? . . . Oh . . . You came back . . . I thought maybe you’d just keep running.”

“I told you back when this all started that I wasn’t going anywhere unless you told me to leave,” Greg replied. “I don’t give up on people I love.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“I don’t know what you deserve, Jackie, but it’s for a higher power than me to decide,” Greg said. He winced. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind calling 911 and asking for a medic, I’d appreciate it, or I may be answering for my sins a long time before you do.”

T
HE DOG DAYS OF
A
UGUST
slapped Karp in the face like a warm, wet sponge as he emerged from the Criminal Courts Building during the noon recess in
The People of the State of New York vs. Charles E. Vitteli.
The heat and humidity were overwhelming. Everyone standing or walking on the sidewalk along Centre Street—tourists, cops, lawyers, businessmen, and street people alike—looked damp, drained, and in a foul, sweaty mood.

As he stood at the door trying to decide whether to proceed, the three tattered women who’d been watching parts of the trial approached. They stopped when they saw him and appeared about ready to flee. He opened the door for them. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. “Care to get out of the heat?”

The women looked at each other and then nodded. “Thank you,” they said and hurried past him just as he heard his name, followed by an epithet, shouted from the newsstand next to the curb.

Dirty Warren, who appeared to have been watching for him, waved and called out again as he scurried over toward Karp holding out a newspaper. “There you . . . oh boy oh boy whoop . . . are. You forgot to pick up your copy of the
Times
this morning.”

“That’s right, and thank you, the trial has me running,” Karp said as he walked forward to meet his friend. Then he paused
and looked suspiciously at the news vendor. “What gives with the restraint? Why aren’t you challenging me with
On the Waterfront
trivia questions now that we’re into the trial?”

Dirty Warren grinned as he peered up at Karp, his light blue eyes magnified like a cartoon character’s by the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses. “Thought you’d never ask, but since you insist . . .” he said as he assumed a role. “Who am I? ‘You want to know what’s’ . . . fucking-a whoop . . . ‘wrong with our watefront? It’s the love of a lousy buck. It’s’ . . . oh boy ohhhhh boy . . . ‘making love of a buck—the cushy job—more important than the love of man!’ Whoop oh boy.”

“Actually, that’s not too bad a rendition of Karl Malden as Father Barry,” Karp admitted. “At least compared to your usual lame attempts and, I have to say, rather on point for this trial.”

Dirty Warren beamed at the backhanded compliment as he hopped from one foot to the next. “I been practicing,” he boasted, continuing to hop. “It’s about time you recognized real . . . ah fuck shit . . . talent.” He stopped hopping and looked around to make sure none of the passersby were listening before sidling closer and speaking in a low voice. “Actually, I was about to . . . whoooop . . . come find you. I think I got something for you . . . balls vagina whoop whoop . . . regarding the trial.”

Karp’s mind switched from movie trivia to paying attention to whatever his little friend was trying to tell him between profanities. He never knew what the vendor, with all of his contacts among the city’s street people, whose grapevine of information often astounded him, might have heard.

As sure as New York garbage workers always choose to strike during the hottest week of the summer, he knew that Vitteli was guilty of murder and believed that he had the evidence and witnesses to prove it beyond any doubt. But Vitteli’s lawyer, Syd Kowalski, was several cuts above Clooney when it came to trying a criminal case and, lacking any compunction regarding using whatever means he could to get his client off, a dangerous adversary.

Clooney was a joke who didn’t belong in a courtroom. Looking for major ink and airtime to further his ambitions, he’d taken on a high-profile case in which he believed he could out-finesse the prosecution.

When Jackie Corcione confessed to his role in the murder of Vince Carlotta, he also told Karp that Vitteli had paid Clooney’s legal bills for Bebnev, as well as the two lawyers assigned to DiMarzo. “Vitteli wanted to make sure he was in control of everything that happened from the defense standpoint and know everything the defendants were telling their lawyers,” Corcione said. That Clooney had been so incompetent and turned into such a laughingstock by Karp was not part of the white-shoe lawyer’s plan. He’d slunk away after the trial and, at least according to press accounts Karp had read, wasn’t returning telephone calls.

Karp would deal with Clooney and the other two lawyers later. However, Kowalski was no paper-pushing white-shoe attorney who didn’t know habeas corpus from a hole in the ground. Much like Guma, he was a courtroom brawler who reminded Karp of Edward G. Robinson in the film
Illegal.
He had a lot of experience and success defending union members, as well as organized-crime figures; and while he and Karp had never butted heads in court, he’d won acquittals against some of the five boroughs’ best prosecutors, as well as his share of dogfights in federal court.

Built like a bulldog, with a toughness to match, Kowalski was one of those savvy, articulate lawyers who, through the sheer force of his will, a compelling courtroom persona, and a con man’s understanding of human nature, was capable of manipulating the average, trusting juror. As such, he occasionally blew up so-called motion picture, can’t-lose cases—the ones that have confessions, eyewitnesses, and corroboration to choke a rhino—by persuading at least one juror that the prosecution’s motives and/or conclusions were suspect, potentially leading to at least a hung jury. But no case is a slam-dunk, airtight sure thing; it’s generally tempestuous drama dealing with real people, real fears, real misgivings, and
at times compounded by faulty recollections, angst, and nervousness. And
The People vs. Vitteli
was no exception, especially with an amoral “win at all cost” defense attorney in the other corner.