Чарли Стелла - Johnny Porno

“And that makes you proud, killing your own kind for greaseballs like Vento?”

“That’s funny comin’ from a piece of shit like yourself. How long you on his payroll was it? Five years? Ten? The problem with guys like you, thieves in uniform, you get soft playing make-believe. Can’t handle the pressure when it comes.”

“Says you,” Kelly said.

“Or what the fuck am I doing here?”

Kelly exchanged a long hard stare with Burns. He said, “You’re gonna kill me, get it over with. I don’t enjoy conversing with bog Irish.”

“First things first,” Burns said. “The safe combination.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, I know, except I’m getting inside it with or without your help. Without, I might have to bend your wife over a table first, give her a little Roto-Rooter through the back door. Supposed to work wonders for the incontinent.”

“She don’t know the combination. What do you take me for?”

“Then she’d be getting all that action for nothing.”

“Those the terms you set up front, you fuckin’ genius? You kill me but then you gotta rob my house? There’s nothing in the house, you moron. I keep mine in the bank.”

“I’ve already been down the basement. There’s a safe and you’re going to give me the combination.”

“I’m gonna do that, I might as well open it.”

“And reach for the piece inside? I don’t think so.”

“Then I guess you’re fucked once you shoot me,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

“Let me ask you this then,” Burns said. “You have three daughters, correct?”

“Stebenow’s lucky you went back inside,” Captain Edward Kaprowski said, “now Kelly’s dead anyway.”

“I almost didn’t,” Lieutenant Detective Neil Levin said. “We had that beef with Stebenow’s SAC outside and then Brice wanted a soda. I wound up having another one after the first. We just made it back down the subbasement in time.”

They had been eating Nathan’s hot dogs in Kaprowski’s Catalina parked near the ramp leading to the Coney Island boardwalk on Stillwell Avenue. Levin licked a dangling onion from his frankfurter bun, then bit off the end of the hot dog.

“You think he would’ve done it?” Kaprowski asked. “Killed him, I mean.”

Levin nodded as he finished chewing. He swallowed, wiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded again. “The look in his eyes? Oh, yeah.”

“You think it was him farmed it out?” Kaprowski said.

“Could’ve been with copies of the same tapes he gave us.”

“Lord forgive me, there is one, I like to think it was the mob cleaning up their own mess,” said Kaprowski before taking a bite from his frankfurter. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, then took a sip of Coke through a straw. He set the soda on the console and forced a belch. He excused himself and wiped his mouth again, this time with the back of his right hand.

Kaprowski had come to inform Levin of his promotion and the fact that Detective Steven Brice’s sexuality had been exposed in a separate Internal Affairs investigation.

“Conducted at the behest of Lieutenant Detective Sean Kelly,” he explained, “back when Brice was first assigned to him. Claimed he wanted his new guys vetted.”

“I’m glad he’s dead,” Levin said.

“Kelly had an issue with Brice’s car. Thought he shoulda been using it to chase tail.”

“Mach One.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What do they have?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s an easy bet there are pictures involved. Nothing naked, unless they’re doin’ it in some park someplace, but they probably have whatever was public between them. The boyfriends’n advertising. Apparently they weren’t as careful up in Connecticut, where the guy lives, they were down here.”

Kaprowski started on his fries. He stopped after a few. Levin took a long drink of Rheingold beer from a can.

“There anything we can do for him?” he asked.

“Bring him over to us,” Kaprowski said. “I can expedite that, but it’s only a matter of time before some asshole lets it out, whatever they have. Kid’s in for hell when that happens.”

Levin set his fries on the console. “What if I team up with him?”

“He’s still the one’s gonna have to deal with this, my friend. It isn’t going away.”

“Kid has balls,” Levin said. “How he went after Hastings. Could’ve walked into the middle of that shootout. Shots fired and he went down those stairs anyway. Didn’t wait for backup or anything else.”

“Nobody’ll doubt his courage, but speaking of that bar, guess who took it over, Fast Eddie’s?”

Levin shrugged.

“Jimmy Wigs.”

“Valentine?”

“The same,” Kaprowski said. “Him and Vento were friends going back to forever. Probably robbed hubcaps together, the other kids were in kindergarten. Either the bosses figure Valentine is going places or Jimmy was already in on what Vento was doing, figured he’d grab it before somebody else did. Word is he’s being upped, but there’s no confirmation of yet.”

“Which is another possible explanation for Kelly,” Levin said. “Valentine cutting all loose ends.”

Kaprowski nodded. “I like it better that way than it was Stebenow.”

“Me, too. And if Valentine gets his stripe, he’ll be branching out and fast. He’s got a good sized crew in Canarsie. He gets a piece of Williamsburg, he’ll be in position for one of the top spots down the road.”

“Then we’ll set our sights on him.”

“Think he’ll spend time in Williamsburg?”

“Pro’bly, yeah, at first. That bartender Hastings shot survived, he used to run the place for Vento. Very low-key, he is. Not saying a word about what happened, except some cop used to shake him down shot him in the chest. Great publicity for NYPD, Hastings was.”

Kaprowski had dropped a string of sauerkraut on his lap. He picked it up with two fingers, held it up to his mouth and dropped it on his tongue.

“What’s next for me?” Levin asked.

“Canarsie, I’m thinking.”

“The stolen cars?”

“We got a name now. Confirmed. Roy DeMeo.”

“Feds on it?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care. You’ll be straight surveillance to start, until you’re familiar with the players. Supposedly DeMeo’s got a crew of kids working for him. Canarsie locals, but there’s a bar they work from over to Flatlands, the Gemini, I want to keep an eye on it.”

“Sounds exciting, watching a bar. I hope it’s not from some roof.”

“We can get an apartment we will, but you’ll start on a roof so get yourself a parka for when it rains.”

Levin tossed the rest of his fries out the window. A flock of sea-gulls descended on them. A few seconds later, the fries were gone.

“I guess I owe Brice,” Levin said.

“Yeah, you probably do,” Kaprowski said.

Levin took one of Kaprowski’s fries and tossed it to the pigeons. “Sometimes I hate this job,” he said.

Kaprowski offered him the rest of his fries. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I do, too.”

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Jimmy Bench-Press (December, 2002, Carroll & Graf)

Charlie Opera (December, 2003, Carroll & Graf)

Cheapskates (March, 2005, Carroll & Graf)

Shakedown (June, 2006, Pegasus)

Mafiya (January, 2008, Pegasus)

Johnny Porno (April 2010, Stark House Press)

Rough Riders (July, 2012, Stark House Press)

JOHNNY PORNO

Published by Stark House Press