Where It Hurts (13 page)

(MONDAY AFTERNOON)

T
he Northport Manor on Larkfield Road was a second-rate catering hall, its façade recently redone in a Long Island version of Tuscan design. Which is to say that a Tuscan would have thought it looked like an ugly building from Long Island. Still, it was an improvement over its previous incarnation, which had been kind of a concrete and stucco bomb shelter. Like Marsden Brothers, I’d driven past the Manor every shift for the last ten years I was on the job, but unlike the funeral home, I’d been inside the Northport Manor many, many times. Our old house on Pinetree was no more than a five- or ten-minute drive away.

The huge parking lot behind the place was nearly as empty as the lot by the basketball courts had been. Nearly. There was a black Cadillac CTS Coupe parked in one of the four reserved spots and a white BMW 650i convertible parked right beside it. The Caddy belonged to Freddy Guccione, the Manor’s owner. The Beemer belonged to Meri Klein, the banquet manager. Freddy and Meri were married, just not to each other, and they’d been having an affair for years. Cops get to know the business owners in their patrol sectors, and the owners sometimes share more than they should. Half the cops I’d worked with, men and women alike, were fucking around, so I wasn’t judging Freddy and Meri.
They were happy. That counted for a lot in this world. If I hadn’t been completely convinced of that before John’s death, I was now.

There were a few other cars in the lot as well: a drab Camry, a Ford Focus, a brown Honda CR-V, and a ridiculous lime-green Plymouth Neon with a custom paint job covered in several coats of clear-coat lacquer. The old Neon was tricked out with elaborate rims, low-profile tires, ground effects, and a rear spoiler. I had a pretty good sense of who the funky Neon belonged to. The man I had come here to see: Ralph O’Connell.

O’Connell’s was the first name listed in the notebook that Tommy Delcamino had left behind. According to Tommy, O’Connell and TJ had been best friends and had run together for a long time. A lot of that running had involved “some stupid shit” like drugs and stolen car parts, but Tommy also mentioned that O’Connell was “a good kid who didn’t mean no harm.” Tommy didn’t think Ralph had anything to do with TJ’s murder, but thought he might have some idea of who did.

I walked into the Manor through the back entrance as I had countless times before, both as a cop and as a father bringing his kids to confirmation parties, bar mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, and sports awards dinners. I was glad to see Freddy had redone the interior as well, and more successfully than the outside of the place. Meri noticed me right away and excused herself from a young couple she’d been pitching about a wedding. As she approached, the light of recognition went on in her eyes. Her handsome, overly made-up face crinkled into a beaming smile. Then it happened. She remembered there was something she knew about me, something bad. Remembering what it was took the crinkled joy right out of her. The arms she had been extending to hug me out of happiness became a hug of pity and remorse. I accepted her embrace. What else could I do? And there was genuine warmth in her touch.

When she pushed away, she said, “I heard about John Jr., may he rest in peace. I’m so sorry, Gus.”

“Thanks, Meri.”

“Are you okay? How’s your family coping?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t really have to.

She shook her head. “I’m such an idiot. In college I majored in stupid questions. I got all As.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I know you meant well.”

She sagged, relieved I’d let her off her own hook. “You here to see Freddy? He didn’t mention you coming—”

“No, sorry. I’m here to see your maintenance guy, Ralph O’Connell.”

Meri made a face like she’d just bitten into a frozen steak. “Ralphy! What do you want with him?”

“Just to talk.”

Her expression told me she didn’t quite believe me, but she said, “Suit yourself, Gus. He’s in the Venice Room, setting up the dance floor for an office Christmas party we got booked for later. When you’re done with Ralphy, please stop in to say hello to Freddy. He’ll be mad if you don’t at least say hello.”

I winked at her, hugged her, and left her to deal with the young couple.

The walls of the Venice Room were covered in cartoonish murals of canals, gondolas, bridges, and weathered old buildings. An oversized crystal chandelier hung from the domed ceiling. Fake columns and ornate moldings were also part of the décor, but the intended effect was ruined because all the lighting was turned way up. A muffled bang got my attention. Over to one side of the large room, a guy in blue coveralls was dropping big wooden squares off a cart onto the carpeting. I walked up behind him and he half turned to take a look at me. His unwashed coveralls stank of a week’s worth of sweat and the room smelled of last night’s rubbery prime rib and over-roasted potatoes.

“You Ralphy O’Connell?” I asked, though I knew it was him. Even if Meri hadn’t told me so, I would have recognized his doughy face from the photo next to his name in Tommy’s notebook. He was in several of the other photos, too, that Tommy had stuffed into the
backpack. I had to give Tommy D. props for compiling this notebook like he had. It was really unusual, especially for someone who wasn’t very bright. Whether it was love or guilt that drove him to do it was beside the point. What mattered now was that he had.

O’Connell turned back and continued his work. “You a cop? Took you long enough to come talk to me. TJ’s dad—” Ralph stopped talking and crossed himself.

“What about Tommy D.?”

“He’s dead.”

“I know that, kid,” I said, even though he wasn’t a kid, not really. “I’m not here about Tommy. I’m here about your friend, about TJ.”

That got his attention. He stopped what he was doing, stood straight up, and looked me in the eye.
His
eyes were full of regret. I was good at spotting it.

“What about TJ?”

“C’mon, kid, let’s you and me get a cup of coffee across the street.”

He didn’t argue, just brushed his palms on the thighs of his coveralls, and started walking.

(MONDAY AFTERNOON)

F
rank and Joey, the guys from the Larkport Deli across the street from the Manor, were glad to see me, their happiness not dampened by my portable dark cloud. If they didn’t know about my son, I wasn’t going to tell them. It was a great relief to share a greeting unlike the one I’d had with Meri, a greeting unfreighted with funeral wreaths and dirges. We spent a few minutes busting each other’s chops the way we used to when I’d stop in for coffee on a rainy night. Ralphy had just taken his coffee and found a quiet two-top in the back.

“That your green Neon parked behind the Manor?” I asked as I sat across from him.

He nodded and kind of grunted, unsure what to make of me. Even so, he couldn’t hide his proud smile at the mention of his car.

“That paint job alone must’ve cost you some major bucks.”

“Fuckin’ A— Sorry, man.”

“I’ve heard the word before, kid. And just so we’re straight, I’m not a cop, not anymore. Used to be. So anything you say to me stays with me.”

I sipped my coffee, let its familiar taste bring back pleasant
memories. I wanted to give Ralph a chance to absorb what I’d said. Give him a second to try it on for size and readjust his expectations. His time was up.

“So tell me about your car.”

“I did most of the work on her myself. Well, me and TJ.” Then Ralphy looked around to make sure no one else was listening and lowered his voice anyway. “TJ kinda helped me get some of the parts, if you know what I mean. He was something with cars.”

“You and TJ were tight?”

“Real tight. TJ and me, we went back to, like, third grade together.” He laughed quietly, a sad smile on his crooked mouth. “Man, we got into all sorts a shit together, me and TJ.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“It wasn’t like that. I know TJ’s dad thought our crew was a bunch of assholes, but we were just friends out doing some stupid shit, is all. What group of guys don’t get into some stupid shit, like, when they’re young? My dad, he says that the only thing that separates the good guys from the bad is getting caught.”

Spoken like the yoyo who always got caught
, I thought. I was pretty tired of hearing this self-serving crap. I’d listened to it the whole time I was in uniform, though like all bullshit, there was a little bit of truth behind the stink. Everybody speeds, yet only a tiny percentage of speeders gets ticketed. So, are the unlucky schmoes who get caught the only bad guys? I just kept quiet, hoping Ralph would fill the empty space with chatter. I sipped my coffee and listened. He obliged.

“Sure, I mean, we got in trouble for some stuff. We sold a little weed and shit, sold some fake X at clubs. Mostly we boosted cars or stripped ’em down for parts.” He shrugged and made a face. “No biggie. We never hurt nobody.”

I had neither the time nor inclination to explain to him how wrong he was, not that he would have understood if I had.

“Listen, Ralph, I’m not here about any petty shit. Before he got
killed himself, Tommy Delcamino came to me and asked me to help him find out who’d killed his son. Can you think of anybody who might’ve wanted to do TJ any harm?”

The expression on his meaty face changed, churning from smug innocence to something that looked like fear. Beads of liquid formed on his upper lip, and that wasn’t the only part of him that was sweating. I got a powerful whiff of him and immediately stuck my nose into my coffee cup.

“Don’t hold back on me now, Ralph.”

“Come on, man. That was over, like, a year ago.” He stood up. “Thanks for the coffee and all, but I gotta get back to—”

I gave him my best fish-eyed cop stare. “Sit the fuck back down, Ralphy. Right now!”

He puffed out his chest. “Yeah, or what?”

I stood up and leaned across the table so my face was very close to his. “Or I’ll kick your chubby bee-hind up and down Larkfield Road. Then I’ll drag you across the street and have Freddy fire your ass. That work for you?”

He sat back down. I hesitated for a second before I did, too.

“Talk to me, Ralphy.”

“TJ got me mixed up in a drug deal that went to shit.”

“A drug deal. That’s a start. Give me the details.”

“Black Molly,” he whispered. “It’s like Ecstasy on steroids.”

“I know what Molly is, Ralph. I was a street cop for twenty years.”

“Okay, okay. Man, you don’t have to bust my balls. So TJ comes to me and says we can kill it and that he can get a hold of a shitload of this stuff if we can scrape a few thousand bucks together.”

“Ralphy, no offense, but—”

“I had some bread saved up, like ten grand I was gonna use on the Neon.”

“You gave it to him just like that?”

“Just like that,” he said. “We was best friends. TJ never done me wrong the whole time we were buds.”

“And where did a guy like TJ get his stake?”

Ralph looked everywhere but at me. I could see he was about to lie.

“Don’t start lying to me now, Ralphy. I’m not looking to hurt you here.”

“Car parts.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard. So you gave him your money and he had his money and what happened?”

“We fucked up, I guess. All of a sudden we had like a shitload of product and we didn’t know what to do with it all. I mean, we used to sell maybe a hundred bogus pills in a good month. Now we had thousands of the real thing and we had no idea how to get rid of them all, you know? And we was scared, too. We could do some real serious time inside if we got caught with that much stuff.”

There’s an old adage I learned my first week in the academy: If criminals had half a brain, the cops would be in trouble. TJ and Ralph O’Connell were exhibits A and B. They had thought about only half of the equation, about getting cheap product, without considering how they would sell it. All they saw were dollar signs at the end of the road, not the road itself. Was it any wonder that losers stayed losers?

“What did you guys do?”

Clenching his lips together, he made that reluctant little-boy face again.

“Don’t make me pull teeth, Ralph.”

His fleshy cheeks turned bright red and he was sweating again. “We tried to give it back.”

I didn’t want to laugh, but couldn’t help it. When I stifled myself, I said, “There’s no do-overs in drug dealing. No money-back guarantees, but I guess you found that out, huh?”

He hung his head and nodded. “We didn’t try to give it back, not exactly. We tried to sell it back.”

“I figured. Who were you dealing with?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, some little nigger from Wyandanch that TJ knew.”

“Watch your mouth, asshole.”

He was perplexed. “What’s up with that?”

“This is the twenty-first century in Suffolk County, Ralphy, not Selma in sixty-four.”

“Who the fuck is Selma?”

“Never mind. This dealer you guys tried to sell it back to have a name?”

“Little nig—”

“Mouth!”

“Little black gangsta called Lazy Eye.”

“Where’d this go down?”

“Some house in Wyandanch somewheres. I don’t know. TJ drove.”

I finished my coffee. “What happened?”

“Nothing good, man.”

“Meaning?”

“Lazy Eye offered us four grand back, take it or leave it.”

I winced involuntarily. “Ooh, twenty cents on the dollar. That’s not much of an offer.”

But O’Connell’s face brightened. “TJ told the little—told Lazy Eye to go fuck himself. That we wanted our stake back. Lazy Eye laughed at him and that’s when things got all crazy and shit. TJ pulled out a nine mil and—”

“TJ was carrying?”

“That night he was. I’d never seen him carrying before. He always said that his dad taught him that guns were trouble.”

“So.”

“So when TJ pulls the nine, we hear this
cha
-
ching cha-ching
behind us. We turn around and there’s these two other brothers standing there. One of ’em, the big one, he’s holdin’ a pump-action shotgun at us and the other one’s got a nine on us. I nearly shit myself. Lazy Eye swiped the nine mil outta TJ’s hand and cracked him across the face with it. Split his lip open and his cheek was bleeding like a bastard.”

I didn’t exactly get a chill when he mentioned the men holding the guns on them, but I did get a feeling in my gut.

“And what happened to you?”

He turned red again. “Little fuckin’ nigger kicked me in the nuts, but I fucked him for that. I puked all over his rug.”

“Listen, Ralph, you say nigger again and I’ll do more than kick you in the nuts. Understand?”

He nodded.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” I said.

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“The two brothers holding the guns on you, they have names?”

He shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? I was interested in their guns, not dating them.”

“Describe them to me.”

“One was skinny and chill. The other one was big all over. Why you so interested in them anyways?”

“Let me worry about why, okay? How big was the big man?”

“Taller than you. Huge.” Ralph held his hands about a foot apart. “Had the biggest head I ever seen and that shotgun looked tiny in his hands. The other guy just looked mean.”

I guess I was smiling.

Ralphy didn’t like that. “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry. So what happened after that? After you puked and TJ went down?”

“They threw us a beatin’, kicked the ever-lovin’ crap out of us. Broke my ribs. It was two months till I could breathe right again. Took a whole mess a stitches to close the cuts on TJ’s face.”

“So you were out twenty grand and the drugs.”

“I told you we fucked up.”

“I’d say so. This was about a year ago.”

The coffee seemed to turn bitter in his mouth. “Yeah, almost exactly a year.”

“And how were things between you and TJ after that?”

“Not so good. I only saw him once after that. He called me a few times when he was high, swearin’ he’d get me my money back, sayin’ we should get together and shit, but it never happened. I guess he felt bad about how it went down and gone to shit and how we got the crap beat outta us. I mean, I cared about losing all the money—who wouldn’t, right? And I didn’t like the beatin’ I took, but it wasn’t all his fault. We were buds forever, you know? And the whole thing kinda woke me up. That’s when I got a straight job. Workin’ across the street . . . it’s not much, but it’s something. Freddy and Meri, they’re all right.”

I understood that. Boy, did I ever. I was glad to hear that the shithead had some ability to reflect on his life and make a change.

“You say you only saw him once again. When was that?”

Ralph actually got teary-eyed and had to gather himself before he could speak. “The week he was killed, maybe a day or two before. He showed up at my folks’ place, outside my bedroom window at, like, three in the morning. It was really weird.”

“How so?”

“He was really high and he looked like he’d taken another beatin’. He had a black eye and his bottom lip was all swollen and shit.”

“Did he want something, to borrow money or to hide out or anything?”

Ralph shook his head and smiled a goofy smile. “No. That’s the thing. He brought
me
money. Twelve thousand bucks. He said it was to pay back the money he lost me on the drug deal, plus interest.”

“Where’d he get twelve thousand bucks?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. All he would say is that he’d hit a fuckin’ jackpot and made the score of a lifetime. He said that the twelve grand was just the beginning, that the two of us would be flush for a long time.”

“Did he explain any—”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’m just telling you how it was.”

“What about his face?”

“He said it was no big thing, just part of the price he had to pay for the score.”

I didn’t like it. “That’s all he said?”

“Man, I was still half-asleep and I was happy to get my money back. I didn’t know that was the last time I was going to see him. If—” He choked up again.

“Okay, okay. Take a minute.”

After he collected himself, he stood again and said, “I really got to get back to work.”

“One last thing and then we’re good, Ralphy.”

“What?”

“Did you tell any of this to the cops?”

If derisive laughter had a defining sound, Ralph O’Connell was making it.

“Cops! What cops? Nobody ever talked to me about this or nothing else. I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m not that dumb. I know TJ’s dad musta given my name to the SCPD, but nobody came knockin’. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to them.
Hey, fellas, you wanna hear about our fucked-up drug deal?
I mean, come on.”

“If they had knocked, would you have told them what you just told me?”

He shrugged. “Some of it, yeah. I wouldn’ta told them about the drug deal or nothin’ like that, but I woulda told them something.”

That much I believed.

I stood up, too, and offered him my hand. “Okay, Ralph, thanks. I appreciate you talking to me this way.”

He shook my hand and said, “I hope you find the fuckers who hurt TJ that way. He was the best friend I ever had and I’m never gonna have a friend like him again. I know he was a fuckup, but nobody deserves to die like that.”

I handed him a card from the Paragon, one with my cell number written on the back, and told him to call me if he could remember
anything else that might help or if he wanted to talk. He just kind of nodded and left. I followed a few minutes later.

I considered going back through the Manor and stopping in for a word with Freddy, but decided I wasn’t up for it. I did have to go collect Father Bill at some point before heading in for that night’s shift. I’d also had enough sadness, enough looking back and behind me for one day. As I walked around the Manor, I looked up to see where the sun was. It was lower in the sky, having taken its false promises toward New York City and points west.