Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

Mintz, agonizing, broke the silence again, “Whatcha got?”

“Fuckin’ set of balls and a mutilated thingy,” DeGraw said with more calm than his heart commanded.

“Friggin’ Christ,” Mintz moaned. “Are you shittin’ me?”

There’s an extremely unhappy man in Brooklyn tonight, DeGraw thought as he stood, found the wall with his shoulder, and crept further down the alley, gun out front. He knew he was walking through more blood, soon coming to a severed human arm without a hand, and eventually to a torso that was missing the sex organs, one arm, and its head. He noticed that the head had been propped on a barrel against the opposite wall, eyes open like it was viewing the scene.

His heart trying to pound its way out of his chest, DeGraw wanted to run. But he filled his lungs to the brim and exhaled out loud, forcing himself to do his job, make observations. The victim seemed to be a male Caucasian, late twenties/early thirties, minus the aforementioned body parts.

DeGraw lit a cigarette and then held the lighter in front of the victim’s vaguely familiar face. It was bloody, mouth twisted in what had to be either the victim’s final agony or some kind of sick last laugh.

Holding the lighter up, he could see nobody else in the alley, which ended at a solid wall. He scanned up the sides of both buildings and could see no one on a rooftop, so he turned back to the sidewalk, away from the victim and toward Mintz.

Emerging from the alley, gun holstered, DeGraw remained silent because he wanted to make Mintz ask, just to bust nuts a little bit.

“Well?” Mintz said.

“Well what?”

“What’d you find?… Jesus Christ, Frank.”

“Call it in. Rest of the guy’s down there, in pieces.”

As Mintz pulled his radio, DeGraw walked over to a puddle, patting at his pockets. “Gimme some gloves, Louie.” DeGraw took one last drag from his cigarette and flicked it away. Then he slipped on the surgical gloves Mintz handed him, lifted a soggy wallet, and flipped it open. Mintz held his Maglite on it, peering over DeGraw’s shoulder.

As if DeGraw needed another shock right at that moment, he saw the driver’s license photo of a man he was now sure he recognized.

“Hold that call,” DeGraw said, and then looked over at Mintz. “Know who we got here? None other than William Montemarano.”

“Wild Willy?” Mintz said. “And they left him here?… Why, Frank?”

“’Cuz we put him outa business for good, I guess,” DeGraw said. “Aw, fuck, and I never knew before this second, but this guy’s the scumbag who goes out with my ex.”

“Wait, Sandra? How the hell’s Sandy go out with a Mafioso like Wild Willy?”

“I don’t think she knew he was the same guy. I sure didn’t To me, he’s just Bill-some-Italian-guy, Bill the guy who owned a tow truck company. We never ran into him down here anyway, just his crew, so I didn’t know what he looked like. Did you?”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Mintz said. “She serious about this guy?”

“Fuck,” DeGraw said, face going dark as the full extent of the situation dawned on him. “Whole time together, I never laid a hand on my wife she didn’t want me to…”

“What?” Mintz said, not quite following the train of thought.

“You know, I just spanked her and stuff like that, but…”

“Frank, I don’t wanna know about… Why you talkin’ about yer sex life?”

“Was just a game,” DeGraw said. “Never, and I mean never did I raise my hand to Sandy in anger.”

“Fine. But what’s that gotta do with Wild Willy in pieces in the alley here?”

“Once, Lou, one time only, I hit Sandy. Big argument, she was slammin’ me with a telephone ’cuz I wouldn’t let her make a call to this mutt, this new boyfriend.”

“Who turns out to be Wild Willy, but okay, what does you hittin’ Sandy…?”

“I wasn’t even outa the house yet and she’s whorin’ herself with this guy. I’m givin’ her shit about it, and she’s really pummelin’ me in the chest. Which is fine, but then she clips me in the face and I just react, on reflex. I cuff her one on the chin and she goes down in a heap like I’d really hauled off, which, you know, I absolutely did not do.”

“Okay, got it, stormy freakin’ romance,” Mintz said. “But…”

“I shouldna had those beers at lunch.”

“Wait a minute,” Mintz said. “Yer makin’ turns here…”

“I just had four frickin’ beers, dunce, and six before we started the shift.”

“So what, there’s nobody around,” Mintz said. “Yer not makin’ sense.”

“If we call this in, they’ll around. They find out I know the victim, they’re gonna sit me down for questions, and I don’t want no beer on my breath, okay?”

“All right, but we gotta call this in,” Mintz said. “We’ll get ya some mints when we go back. And yer not drunk anyway, so what da fuck ’er ya talkin’ about?”

“Listen,” DeGraw said, grabbing Mintz by the arms. “One time I was violent with my wife over the guy, and another time… I threatened this guy’s life.” Mintz’s jaw went slack again as DeGraw continued, pointing each word, “He was smackin’ her around, so I threatened him in front of half my friggin’ neighborhood in Gravesend. They all heard me threaten to cut Wild Willy’s balls off if he hit Sandy again in front of the baby.”

“Whoa,” Mintz said, breathing heavier. “When did this happen?”

“Couple weeks ago, Labor Day. I stopped in to see the baby. So I’m inside, and everybody’s outside drinkin’, and then he and she start to argue over something, I don’t know what, and things fly outa hand. So I go out, and he’s manhandlin’ her, and all of a sudden I’m handin’ the kid off and steppin’ in. Big friggin’ scene, right in the street.”

“And you don’t tell me this weeks ago?”

“Fuck you,” DeGraw said. “You gossip way too much.”

“And I just heard twelve too many details for one night, so shut the fuck up.”

DeGraw poked a finger at Mintz’s chest. “You and me, we gotta get on the same page here, or this thing’s gonna get nasty.”

“Oh, it’s already nasty,” Mintz said, half-laughing with a hysterical little whoop. DeGraw recognized it as Mintz’s nervous habit when he felt he was in over his head.

“I need ya, Lou. I ain’t sittin’ in a cell for somethin’ I had nuttina do with.”

“Hold on, just hold on and tell me something,” Mintz said, mustering his courage, taking a breath and squaring himself in front of DeGraw. “Did you ice this guy?… No, no, no, don’t tell me, please don’t tell me, I don’t want to know…”

“You fuckin’ hump,” DeGraw said, grabbing his hat from his head and swiping a meaty paw across his face and through his hair. “I mean, you really think …”

“It’s a proper question,” Mintz said, trying to beat back another whoop. “And if you can’t handle it comin’ from me, how you gonna do when they sit you down?”

DeGraw let his body go slack. He needed Mintz to be as cool as possible, for moral support at the very least, and maybe more than that. “Awright, listen, Mintzy. Everybody knows the world’s a little better now that this guy stopped breathin’. Cripes, I’d like to be able to say that I did do this guy. But it just so happens that I did no ice this muthuh. And now my footprints are down there in his friggin’ blood okay?”

“Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is right,” DeGraw said. “What am I gonna do with all this?”

“Wow, I don’t know, Frank. What do ya think?”

“Look, my footprints are down there. You think maybe you could walk down there too and put your footprints all over? Then we could maybe say you were the one who went down and not me, I stayed out here.”