William Landay - The Strangler

Charlie Capobianco glared. “You believe this guy? Are you threatening me?”

Michael shook his head.

“Hey, you speak American, you fuck? I asked you a question. Are you threatening me?”

“No. Sir.”

“You come in here, to my place of business, and give me some story about I got money in this thing, and I did this and that in the West End, and to top it all off I had your brother and your father killed-and you’re not threatening me?”

“No.”

“Then what in the fuck do you want?”

“I’m asking you to let us out. My brother Ricky and me, the both of us-just let us walk away. That’s all we want.”

They were in Capobianco’s shabby Thatcher Street office. Michael sat in a vinyl chair. Charlie Capobianco stood nearby, glowering, chin tipped up. Charlie’s brother Niccolo listened from a couch nearby. Consigliere Nick was keeping his distance, in both senses.

“What are you shakin’ for?” Charlie said.

“I’m not shakin’.”

“You are. I see you. You get all this from Gargano?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would he tell you anything?”

“He was hurt. Maybe he thought he was dying.”

“Why would he think that?”

“He was hurt pretty bad.”

“Who hurt him?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Ah, fuck Gargano. He can take care of himself. But you can’t fuck me, hear me, Paddy? Your brother owes me money. He took those stones. He’s gonna pay me my fuckin’ money.”

“He says he didn’t take them.”

“He can say he’s a fuckin’ elephant-doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“He says he didn’t take them.”

Capobianco sat down next to Michael and leaned in close. His breath had an eggy stink. “Why would I do this for you, some Paddy off the street? I don’t know you.”

“You let us out, you keep your money. I’ll take the whole story to my grave.”

“I could make that happen sooner than you think.”

“I’ve made arrangements. A reporter has the story, someone I know, in case I go to my grave any too soon. If that story comes out, you’ll lose all your money one way or another. A grand jury’ll find it. It doesn’t matter how you invested it, how you kept your name off it. They’ll open up those trusts and find you. The pols’ll probably stop construction, too. Either way, the money’s lost. It’s more than me and Ricky are worth. All you got to do is just let us out. Sir. Just let us out.”

From behind Michael, Nick interjected, “Okay. You’re out.”

But Charlie Capobianco, the boss, was not quite finished. “What kind of guy are you, Paddy? You come in here and tell me I killed your brother, your father, but still you’re willing to make deals.”

“There’s someone else who’s more responsible than you.”

Conroy had spent the night working the Joe Daley homicide. An allnight vigil was typical of the critical early hours of a homicide investigation; it was pursued with a special mission in this case, where the victim was a cop. Night-for-day meant nothing. Almost immediately they had searched for an organized-crime angle. The stink around Joe Daley and the brazenness of the hit pointed the way as clearly as fingerposts. They swarmed out to press witnesses and rats, and in the whisperings a single name swirled continually: Vincent “The Animal” Gargano.

For Brendan Conroy the direction of the investigation was worrisome. If Gargano ever did start talking, who knew where it would lead? But the situation could be managed. In the end, there was no chance Gargano would talk; these North End guinea hardcases didn’t operate that way. That was all that mattered. Conroy was insulated. For now there was nothing to do but stay out front. Over the next few days and weeks in his dual roles as detective and grieving “stepfather,” he would be a paragon.

He got home around nine A. M., but only for a quick stopover. A hot shower and a good stropping toweling-off and a clean shirt, then he would head off to Margaret’s house to join the mourners. He stood in the tub shower, let the water pound him awake, thought of Margaret and of various graceful condolences he might dispense over the next few hours. His position with the Daleys, with Margaret in particular, could only be strengthened by his performance today. He would radiate his imperturbable strength and they would be grateful. How could they not be? It was no good, a manless woman, a manless family. He would lead them. But softly, softly. No need to overstep. Jesus, his back and knees ached. Getting old. His brain was the only goddamn part of him that wasn’t breaking down. Every other goddamn thing, knees and cock and shoulders and eyes and feet, the whole damn thing was starting to go.

He turned the water ice cold-he believed it closed the pores and thus warded off sickness-and withstood the blasting freeze for a full thirty seconds, then turned it off. He yanked the shower curtain back with its metallic screech.

He froze. Shocked, he worried he might piss; his bladder was suddenly engorged, quivering, another betrayal by his aging body.

But he recovered himself to say, in a loving tone-because surely there was still a deal here, a way to talk his way out-“Well now, look at you. And where did you get that?”

It was from the newspapers that Michael learned, later, what sort of gun he brought to Brendan Conroy’s home that morning. It was a Smith amp; Wesson Model 39 nine-millimeter with a blue-black finish and wooden grips. The newsmen were keen to identify the gun precisely, just as the newspapers had been full of Oswald’s 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano carbine. In the absence of meaningful information, minor data can be spun to create an illusion of knowledge. Sometimes it’s the best you can do.

Michael did understand the gun’s logical significance, its value to the detectives who would puzzle over it. Here was the same weapon used to kill Joe Daley the night before. The magazine bore prints of Vincent Gargano’s thumb, index and middle fingers, protected from smudging inside the pistol grip. They would conclude-what else?-that Gargano had killed both Joe Daley and Brendan Conroy. They would not wonder for long over the motive, either: “Two Cops Slain for Anti-Mob Bravery,” the reporters would write. The story would be an easy sell. It is a cop’s job, after all, to stand in a criminal’s way.

Better still, as Amy used to say, that headline would move paper. And who would ever step forward to complicate the official version? Not Gargano, certainly; Vinnie The Animal, it would be widely assumed, had gone underground. Not the cops; still bruised by the bookie- joint controversy and the gossip about mishandling the Strangler case, the Department would happily lay the blame on an olive- skinned baddie in order to close the cases. Michael understood all that. Every murder plays out first as a whodunit-people can’t stand not knowing-and only then as a tragedy. So Michael had been canny enough, even in the hysteria of hammering Vincent Gargano to death, to resolve the whodunit for them. He had retrieved the gun. He had found an extra loaded magazine in Gargano’s jacket. Using the dead man’s wormy fingers, he had rolled the fingerprints onto the magazine. Its smooth oiled finish would hold the prints nicely. When he was finished here at Conroy’s apartment, Michael intended to leave the gun for them to find.

The apartment door was unlocked.

In the living room was a cheap tin snack table on metal-tube legs. Water was dripping somewhere, pink, pink, pink.

It was not too late to stop, of course. He could turn around and walk out and no one would be the wiser. But he had determined to do this thing, and the idea pulled him on. He took Gargano’s gun from his coat, and the gun seemed to lead him by the hand toward the bathroom, toward the sound of the water.