Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

“No you won’t. You’re right about what they’ll do. They’ll investigate you.”

“Right,” DeGraw said, noticing that Mintz was calmer now.

“And you know, they might not find that you iced ol’ Willy, but if they nose around into your activities, they’re bound to find out about the boosted guns, don’t ya think?”

“That’s not for you, that’s for me to worry about. How many times do I…”

“I’m sorry for bringin’ it up, Frank, but you could end up stuck with gun charges off of Wild Willy bein’ found dead here, so we gotta do what you suggest, right? We gotta dump Willy in the channel. Just promise me, Frank, if this goes wrong, you’ll step up and protect me.”

“I got yer back from now till the tomb, partner,” DeGraw replied, slipping the gloves onto Mintz’s hands.

“Faster we’re outa here, better I’ll feel,” Mintz said. “Let’s go.”

Stomachs in knots, they collected all the parts of Wild Willy — including the Mafioso’s wallet — and packed them into a rusted barrel, which they topped off with cinderblocks. Then DeGraw used the side of his Glock to tamp down the metal tabs on the barrel lid until it was secure, and they rolled the barrel to the end of the pier where, without ceremony, they sent the creatures of Buttermilk Channel fresh Italian to eat.

This took longer than they expected. They were late, so they trotted out from the warehouses, heading along Wolcott, making a left on Richards, and sauntering into Red Hook Park.

A sector car was waiting for them.

Nico Dounis, a Greek patrol sergeant everybody called Nicky Donuts, got out of the car when they approached. “Don’t nobody answer the radio no more?”

Mintz looked down at his belt and found the radio turned off. “Shit, sarge, I guess I accidentally turned it off.”

“You two have a brawl?” Dounis asked.

“No,” DeGraw said. “Why?”

“You’re all sweaty.”

“Don’t know what yer talkin’ about, sarge,” Mintz said. “Not sweaty at all.”

“Climbing around the warehouses,” DeGraw said.

“Humid out tonight,” Mintz added. “Uh, horseplay, you know, boys’ll be boys.”

DeGraw recognized three too many excuses when he heard them.

Dounis did too. “Okay, what’s goin’ on?”

DeGraw could see Mintz’s mind go into overdrive, a panicky thought making its way toward the lips, so he took Mintz’s arm and turned him away, stepping forward himself to answer. “Little argument, that’s all. Nothin’, really. He don’t know a guy’s still got feelings for his ex-wife even if they get divorced, so I had to straighten him out.”

Dounis studied DeGraw through squinted eyes, but he stifled an urge to pursue it.

“Hey, it’s late,” Mintz said. “We should walk the park.”

“I walked it myself,” Dounis said. “It’s done.”

“But we’re not that late, are we, sarge?” Mintz asked, and again DeGraw wanted to pound him into unconsciousness, but resisted the urge.

“Forty-five minutes I’m callin’, and I got no word on the radio,” Dounis said. “What’s that on your knee, Frank?”

They all looked down and saw the purplish-red splotch visible even on DeGraw’s navy blue pant leg.

“Oil, I guess,” DeGraw said. “I knelt down to tie my shoe.”

“I ain’t no dope and I don’t appreciate bein’ treated like one,” Dounis said. “Yer late, ya don’t answer the radio, yer all disheveled like ya been fightin’, ya smell like a frickin’ brewery, and ya got blood on yer pants. Don’t tell me that’s oil, ’cuz I know the difference.”

The two patrolmen were stunned. Mintz was ready to speak again but DeGraw spoke first: “Yer absolutely right, sarge. We were negligent. We had a few beers at lunch and lost track of time. Then he insults my ex and I had to straighten him out. Only he don’t show proper respect, so we scuffled a little bit. I took a head butt to the nose and bled, after which I knelt in it when I went down to tie my shoe.”

DeGraw and Mintz waited a tense second while Dounis processed the new information.

“Over here,” Dounis said, walking Mintz about twenty feet away.

Much as he tried, DeGraw couldn’t make out what they were talking about.

Dounis then returned to DeGraw while Mintz stayed behind.

“Turn away from Mintz,” Dounis said, and DeGraw obeyed. “Exactly where was it you two went at each other?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” DeGraw answered. “What the hell did we ever do to you?”

“Where was it you bled? I need to know exact.”

“I don’t know, one of the piers.”

“The piers is your whole patrol, asshole. Which one?”

“How’m I s’posed to know? They all look alike. Like Greeks.”

“After two years, you know those piers like they was yer own pecker.”

“Somewhere around the railroad yard, I’m guessing. Can’t be sure, sarge.”

“That’s not what Mintz said.”

“What d’ya want from me? One of us is right and the other forgot. No big deal.”

“I gotta do somethin’ about this, don’t I?” Dounis said.

“Yer bein’ a hardass, Nicky Donuts. What’s wrong?” DeGraw said. “I never crossed you, not even once.”

Dounis turned to Mintz and said, “Don’t come over here and don’t you two talk to each other.” Then Dounis sat in the cruiser and made a call to the precinct while DeGraw and Mintz could only stare at each other, reading worry on each other’s faces.

When, within a minute, five police cruisers came tearing to that corner of Red Hook Park, Dounis had DeGraw and Mintz taken into custody.

Unfortunately for DeGraw, the forecast was wrong. It never rained that night. Wild Willy’s blood stayed on the pavement and was collected by the crime scene unit.

By noon, DeGraw had spent hours in an interrogation room at the 76th Precinct, where he was interviewed by Catucci and Bourne, two homicide detectives, and Gonzalez, an ADA who’d been summoned from the Brooklyn homicide bureau. Cho and Santos, of Internal Affairs, also watched through the two-way mirror.

To show good faith, DeGraw had waived the “forty-eight-hour rule,” which gives a policeman accused of a crime the chance to arrange for representation without having to answer questions. But he had invoked his right to have his Policemen’s Benevolent Association representative present, so Ken Stanley sat off in a corner.

Not hearing a radio check from DeGraw and Mintz, Dounis had sent other officers onto the piers to look for them. When they arrived, unnoticed in the thickening fog, they watched DeGraw and Mintz pack Wild Willy into the barrel with the cinderblocks and then roll it into the drink.

What was worse, DeGraw soon found out, was the fact that Mintz had turned on him under the pressure of the questioning and was offering his full cooperation against DeGraw in return for a clean walk — which he was granted. It left DeGraw dumfounded.

“But how?” DeGraw asked. “How can he say I did the friggin’ murder? I was with him the whole time, and I swear, we didn’t kill the guy, we just dumped him.”

“’Cuz you were scared you’d be a suspect,” Bourne said, and DeGraw nodded.

“Not a bad story, but not good enough,” Gonzalez said. “Mintz told us everything. And they just raised the barrel, so I got a slam-dunk case against you. Do yourself a favor, pal, cop to a plea and I’ll cut you the best deal I can.”

“Be smart, Frank,” Bourne said. “Wait for your lawyer before you cut any deals.”

DeGraw hung his head and wondered how it all could have gone so wrong so fast.

At that same moment, Lou Mintz was a free man, cruising the streets of Brooklyn in his brand new Lincoln Navigator while singing off-key to a Dean Martin CD.