Coney Island Avenue Read online

  “Chew slowly,” Angie said, beaming.

  Eddie handed her a dozen red roses.

  Then there was a rapping at the door.

  “Expecting your other boyfriend?” Eddie said.

  “Everyone is a comedian. It’s probably my worthless brother. He was just here for another handout.”

  Angie opened the door half way.

  The two men in the doorway did not look friendly.

  “We’re looking for Vincent Salerno,” said the shorter man.

  He was well groomed and he wore a gray business suit. An expensive suit. He could have passed for a banker.

  His companion wore a blue jogging suit and looked like something she might have seen in a zoo.

  “Vincent is not here,” Angie said, Eddie close at her side.

  “We saw him come in.”

  “He was here, he left. I don’t know where he ran off to.”

  “Mind if we take a look?”

  “Yes. I do mind.”

  The ape violently shoved the door open, knocking Angie and the flowers to the floor. Eddie reacted and went after the big man. The gorilla laid Eddie out cold with a roundhouse punch. The two men walked into the apartment. The well-dressed man shut the door while the big man kept an eye on Angie.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the banker said.

  “Very original. God, you really hurt him,” Angie said, looking over at Eddie.

  The big man kicked her in the side.

  “Where is Vincent?”

  “I told you I have no idea where my brother went,” Angela screamed from the floor. “Keep that animal away from us.”

  The big man kicked her again. Then he pulled a gun out of his jacket and pointed it down at Eddie. Eddie was still unconscious.

  “Please, don’t,” Angie said, terrified. “Take whatever you want. I swear, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “Where is your brother?” the man in the business suit said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I am not going to ask you again.”

  “Please, I don’t know.”

  “Fine. I believe you.”

  Suddenly the big man made it official and then Mr. Smith made it absolutely final.

  Vincent Salerno hopped off the F Train at 42nd Street and he walked the two blocks to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Vinnie used most of the money he had scored from his sister, his girlfriend and the man in the restaurant for a one-way bus ticket to Chicago. The bus was scheduled to leave in less than an hour. He walked into Casa Java, located an empty chair at a small table near the rear exit, placed the gym bag under his seat and held it between his feet.

  Vinnie nearly jumped out of his skin when he finally noticed the waitress standing beside him.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Coffee,” Vincent said. “Light. Lots of sugar.”

  Mary Valenti had been attending evening Mass at Sts. Simon and Jude every Wednesday since losing her husband to a massive heart attack fourteen months earlier. As Mary crossed Avenue T on her way home from the church she could hear her dog barking.

  “Hold your horses,” she mumbled as she picked up her pace. When Mary reached the house she found the front door wide open. Unusual.

  She rushed to her apartment door to let the pooch out before he put a new design on her living room rug. The dog raced right past Mary when she opened the door and headed straight up the stairs.

  Mary followed.

  “What in God’s name has gotten into you, Prince?” she said as she reached the third floor landing. The door to the top floor apartment was opened. Prince had disappeared inside and continued to bark wildly.

  Mary called out her tenant’s name. When she received no answer she entered the apartment. She found the dog and saw what he was yapping about.

  Mary held back a scream, quickly made the sign of the cross, scooped up the animal and ran down the stairs to call 9-1-1.

  “I have to say, Augie, the garlic bread was particularly good this evening,” Murphy said after polishing off the last morsel.

  “Tell your friends at the precinct.”

  “Unless I swallow an entire bottle of Listerine before I head back, I won’t need to tell anyone anything.”

  The siren turned both their heads toward the front window.

  The patrol car raced up Avenue U and turned sharply onto Lake Street.

  “One of yours?” Augie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to check it out?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  The siren went silent.

  “It’s close,” Murphy said.

  “Are you going to check it out?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  Vincent Salerno stepped up onto the bus.

  He showed his ticket to the bus driver, made his way to the back of the coach and put the bag under his seat.

  He would be arriving in Chicago the following day, late in the afternoon. Carmine Brigati would be meeting him at the end of the trip and then he and Carmine could argue about how Vinnie was going to get out from under the mountain of trouble he found himself in.

  Vinnie thought about his big sister. As often as he had disappointed Angie, she had always come through for him. He wondered when he would see her again.

  Vinnie was determined to stay awake. To protect the bag. To guard the tape recording that was causing all the turmoil.

  When the bus pulled out of the Port Authority Terminal ten minutes later and entered the Lincoln Tunnel, Vinnie was asleep.

  Officers Landis and Mendez were first on the scene. They were greeted by a woman who was nearly hysterical. Trembling, sobbing, babbling. She clutched a small, wiry-haired dog tightly to her chest like it was a life raft.

  Landis gently eased her into a chair at the kitchen table. Mendez scared up a glass and filled it with water from the kitchen sink. When he placed the glass on the table the woman reacted to it as if it had eight legs.

  Landis finally managed to calm her down somewhat by assuring her she would not have to accompany them to the third floor. Landis asked her to wait and the two officers headed up.

  When they reached the second floor landing they both pulled out their weapons.

  At the third floor landing, they found the door to the apartment opened wide. Landis entered first, slowly, holding his weapon out in front of him with both hands. Mendez followed suit.

  “Jesus,” Mendez said.

  “Check if either victim is alive, nothing more,” Landis said, fairly certain about the answer. “I’ll make sure there is no one else in the rooms.”

  A few moments later Landis was back.

  “Clear,” he said.

  “Both dead,” Mendez said. “Should we check for identification?”

  “We call it in and leave it to the guys making the big bucks. But I can tell you who the boy is. That’s John Cicero’s kid.”

  “Detective Cicero from the Sixty-eighth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck,” said Mendez.

  “Pretty dress,” Landis said.

  TWO

  Sandra Rosen sat at her desk, alone in the large squad room.

  Detective’s Squad. Second floor. 61st Precinct. Coney Island Avenue. Brooklyn. New York.

  Rosen looked around the room. Six desks. Ivanov and Richards out trying to track down two teens who had robbed a coin-operated laundromat wielding metal softball bats. Senderowitz completing a seminar at John Jay College of Criminal Justice called New Directions in Evidence Collection for the 21st Century. Murphy taking a dinner break.

  The last desk, once occupied by Lou Vota, remained unassigned.

  Samson was in his small private office in back, door closed, window shades drawn, not to be disturbed. Buried under a mountain of thankless paperwork.

  It was unusually quiet in the precinct and abnormally calm out in the street. Partic
ularly for this time of year, during the dog days of August, when breaking the law in the Borough of Churches was a popular pastime rivaled only by baseball.

  The call was transferred up to the detectives’ squad by Sergeant Kelly down at the front desk. Rosen answered on the third ring and she kept the conversation short.

  She grabbed her jacket, her shield, and her holstered .38.

  Moments later she was tapping on Samson’s door.

  “Come in, Rosen.”

  Rosen opened the door and entered the captain’s office.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “I can identify all of you by the way you knock. Although you are becoming less and less tentative as you settle in here. I almost mistook you for Senderowitz.”

  “Think you will ever mistake me for Murphy?” Rosen asked.

  “Not unless you start using a battering ram. What’s up?”

  “I just took a call from Landis. I’m on my way out.”

  “What?”

  “Two dead. That’s all I got. I asked Landis to hold the gory details, work at locating the medical examiner and a crime scene investigation team instead. Want to ride along?”

  “Do you need me to?”

  “No.”

  “Where is Tommy?”

  “Out to dinner. I know where to find him. I’ll call him on my way.”

  “I’m glad you came over to us, Sandra.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “And you?”

  “Glad I came over? The jury is still out.”

  “Because of you and Murphy?”

  “It’s tricky.”

  “Call me from the scene. Let me know what you think happened there and yell if you need more uniforms.”

  “I will,” Rosen said, turning to leave.

  “And, Sandra,” Samson said, briefly stopping her in her tracks.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s only tricky when you’re not sure what you want.”

  Ivanov and Richards used their legs, leaving their vehicle parked out in front of the laundromat and moving east along Avenue S.

  The first confirmed sighting was reported by a Pakistani grocery store manager.

  “Two boys walked in and tried to buy cigarettes and beer. I told them it was not possible. They insisted they were old enough. I asked for ID and told one of them if he didn’t stop waving his bat, I was going to wrap it around his neck. They left.”

  The two detectives walked into a pizzeria further down the avenue.

  “Two boys, ordered three large pizzas. One was on his cell phone the whole time they waited for the pies, inviting friends to a party at the school yard. David A. Boody Middle School, two blocks down on the right.”

  “Did they have softball bats?” Ivanov asked.

  “One blue, one gray. One of them paid for the pies, pulled forty-six dollars from a fistful of small bills.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Ivanov said.

  “In my day, they called them Junior High Schools,” the man said.

  “Junior High Schools?” Richards said.

  “Things change,” Ivanov said.

  She dragged Richards back out to the street.

  “What was the rush? That kind of thing interests me.”

  “Let’s go back for the car and find these delinquents while there is still daylight. You can come back here for a history lesson later.”

  “You’re no fun,” Richards said.

  “You may change your tune when we get to the school yard.”

  Like Sandra Rosen, Marina Ivanov and Marty Richards were new recruits to the Six-one. Ivanov had come over from the 60th Precinct, Coney Island, four months earlier after working as a member of a joint task force that included Samson, Vota and Murphy from the 61st and Rosen, at that time with the 63rd Precinct, Flatlands. Marty Richards had come over less than two months earlier after finally realizing he was not cut out for the Internal Affairs Bureau.

  They found eight teens, five boys and three girls, sitting on the ground under a basketball net. Gathered around three open pizza boxes. Someone had scored beer.

  Two of the boys were holding court, side by side with two softball bats resting between them, likely bragging about their daring adventures.

  A boom box was pounding out a rap tune Ivanov did not recognize and Richards could not stomach.

  “How would you like to approach this?” Ivanov asked.

  “By the book.”

  “What? Police, you’re under arrest? Have you taken a good look at that sorry bunch? By the book is seldom effective when dealing with comic book characters. And with that suit you’re wearing, they’ll make you from a mile away and scatter before you say a word.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “The Russian-American junkie prostitute approach. Wait here. Pay attention.”

  Ivanov handed him her jacket, let down and mussed her hair, opened the top three buttons of her blouse, and strutted toward the pizza party.

  Murphy was draining his second bottle of beer when the bar phone rang.

  “Joe’s Bar and Grill.”

  “Augie, this is Sandra Rosen.”

  “Hello, Detective Rosen. Nice to hear your voice.”

  The salutation captured Murphy’s attention.

  “Likewise. Is Tommy there?”

  “Right beside me, trying to get the marinara off his necktie. Hold on.”

  Augie handed the telephone to Murphy.

  “Rosen?”

  “We have what appears to be a double homicide, just up the street from where you are. Lake Street, between Avenues U and T, east side of the street, the only three-story house, brick façade. I’ll be on the top floor.”

  “I’m on my way,” Murphy said.

  “How is that going,” Augie asked, as Murphy threw on his jacket and placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar.

  “How is what going?”

  “You and Rosen stationed at the same precinct.”

  “I’d love to stay and chat, Augie, but I have a crime scene to get to.”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “There is nothing simple about it. Thanks for the beer.”

  “Can’t you tell me if you think it is going to work out?”

  “You want to know what I think.”

  “Yes.”

  “Read my mind,” Murphy said, and he was out the door.

  Rosen stepped out of her car and crossed Lake Street.

  As she approached the building entrance, she spotted Mendez coming toward her from the north.

  “I moved the patrol car up to Avenue U,” he said. “Attract less attention here, at least until the CSU rig and the ambulance come screaming in.”

  “Good call. When are they expected?”

  “Any time now,” Rey said, “and the M.E. is on his way over from Brooklyn Hospital.”

  “Let’s get inside.”

  Mendez led her into the ground floor apartment and back to the kitchen.

  Officer Stan Landis and Mary Valenti sat at the table silently, which was very unusual for Landis and a good indication he had finally managed to calm the woman down.

  “We’re going to need at least four more uniforms, to canvass neighbors and for crowd control,” Rosen said.

  “I’ll call it in,” said Mendez.

  “I would like to go up alone. Watch for the forensic team and Dr. Wayne. No one else gets in. Except Murphy, he should be here any minute.”

  Rosen climbed the stairs to the third floor. She walked through the open door into the apartment. She looked down at the bodies, had to quickly look away for a moment, and then she got down to business.

  Ivanov strolled right through the circle and stopped in front of the two alleged laundromat burglars.

  “I need a cigarette,” she said.

  “And I need a blow job,” said the older of the two.

  “In front of all of these boys and girls?”

  “That’s up to them.”

&n
bsp; “I prefer a little more privacy.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty.”

  “I don’t have fifty. The pizza cost a fortune.”

  “Twenty?”

  “That might be doable. Why don’t you show me a little more of what you have under the shirt.”

  Ivanov reached into her blouse and pulled out her detective shield.

  “Police,” she said. “You’re under arrest.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the kid said.

  Everyone else in the group was suddenly very quiet.

  “Do you want to see my gun also?” Ivanov asked and then added, after a palpable silence, “I’ll take that as a no. I want the two of you face down on the ground, hands behind your backs. The rest of you beat it.”

  Richards saw the group breaking up and he hurried over. Ivanov already had the older boy handcuffed, the second boy wasn’t moving a muscle, and the other six kids were running out of the school yard at breakneck speed.

  “Thank God they took the boom box,” Richards said as he pulled out his own cuffs. “Do we have to clean up the food and drink?”

  “I’m sure there’s a night janitor around here who will appreciate the beer, let’s get these tough characters out of here,” Ivanov said, pulling the older boy up to his feet.

  “Want a slice?” Richards asked, standing the second boy up.

  “I’ll pass.”

  The detectives ushered the boys across the school yard and to the unmarked car. They roughly deposited the boys in the back seat of the vehicle.

  Richards climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Ivanov climbed in beside him.

  “Ivanov.”

  “Yes, Richards?”

  “Your blouse is open.”

  The promotion was not all it was cracked up to be.

  There was much about being in the lower ranks that Samson missed.

  After recovering from a gunshot wound that nearly demolished his elbow, he had been itching to get back to the trenches. Fortunately it was his left arm so he could still throw a baseball with his son, still corral his two young girls in his right arm, and still draw his service revolver.