Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

“Things sure have changed,” he muttered aloud, making a mental note to introduce his Manhattanite partner, Priscilla, to this corner of Brooklyn, so different from her old Bed-Sty neighborhood and her new working confines of Bensonhurst’s Sixty-second Precinct.

He glanced again at his watch, tossing the cigarette away, and walking toward Pete’s Restaurant.

Once seated with Mike McQueen in the rear of the main dining area, Rizzo smiled across the table.

“So, Mike,” he said. “You look great. How are things across the river? You playin’ nice with all the other Plaza boys and girls?”

“Yeah, so far, so good. Piece a cake. When I told my lieutenant I was heading over the bridge to meet you, he told me not to hurry back. It’s pretty relaxed where they have me working.”

Rizzo shook his head and sipped at the double-rocks Dewar’s now before him. “I’d eat the gun if they ever tied me to a friggin’ computer all day. Christ.” His lips turned down. “You sure you’re okay with it?”

“Better than okay,” McQueen answered. “I run complete profiles on everything going on anywhere in the department. I cross-reference crime stats and major cases, looking for patterns or emerging problems. Sometimes I troll for predators, pedophiles, stuff like that, but mostly I’m nosing in on everything the department’s up to. It’s the place to be, Joe. At least for now. They already bumped me up to second grade. That would never have happened so fast if I was still at the Six-Two, no matter how many cases we cleared.”

Rizzo nodded and reached for his menu, flipping it open. “That’s true enough,” he said.

“In my spare time, I scan through stuff, you know, looking for something I can capitalize on. Maybe something to help me catch somebody’s eye, make myself look good. And who knows, someday maybe I can move over to Policy and Planning, where I kinda always wanted to be.”

“What is it, three weeks, a month you’re over there, and already you’re jockeyin’ for position? You learn fast, kid.”

McQueen drained his drink. “Well,” he said, “that’s how it’s done. And it might not be too hard, either. Some of the guys I’ve met over there aren’t the brightest lights, if you know what I mean.”

With a grin, Rizzo replied. “Yeah, well, don’t sell them short, and watch your back. Remember, they were all smart enough to hook their way into the Plaza.”

“Like me, eh, Joe?” McQueen asked.

As he watched Rizzo’s eyes, McQueen ran the details through his mind: how he and Rizzo had tracked down the runaway daughter of a local Brooklyn political power house, City Councilman William Daily. When closeted skeletons had turned up during the investigation, Rizzo had deftly utilized them to both his and McQueen’s advantage.

But the skeletons had never been buried. Instead, they were still lurking, lurking as evidence in the form of a purloined Panasonic microcassette. Lurking in the basement of Joe Rizzo’s Bay Ridge home.

The tape, McQueen thought. The damn tape that could alter the lives of everyone connected to it.

“Yeah,” Rizzo replied, pulling McQueen from his thoughts. “Like you. But you belong over there, Mike. You’re a sharp guy, and a good cop. Maybe they aren’t.”

“Thanks.”

Rizzo shrugged. “Don’t thank me, I didn’t give you your brains. If they give you half a chance over there, you’ll be runnin’ your own squad in a few years.”

“We’ll see,” McQueen said. “But hopefully I’m done with the streets. Almost eight years, that’s enough, and I still may try for the Academy. Teaching. I think I might like that.”

“I can see you there, Mike. You look the part.”

McQueen smiled. “Well, looks are important. Very political at the Plaza. They’re more a bunch of frustrated yuppies than they are cops.”

“We learned a little somethin’ about politics with that runaway Daily kid, now didn’t we, Mikey?”

McQueen’s face turned more somber. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

They ordered their meals, then caught up on each other’s lives. Rizzo filled him in on Priscilla Jackson’s first few days at the Six-Two squad. McQueen laughed when Rizzo related her first encounter with the precinct Romeo, Nick Rossi.

“That’s my Cil,” Mike said.

Later, with McQueen sipping a cappuccino and Rizzo dark coffee, the older cop shifted in his seat and leaned slightly forward. When he spoke, it was in a soft, low voice.

“We need to talk, kid,” he said.

The change in mood wasn’t lost on McQueen. He placed his cup down on the white linen tablecloth and sat back in his seat.

“Yeah. I figured,” he said, his blue eyes neutral.

Rizzo smiled sadly. “Yeah. I figured you figured.”

McQueen waved for the waiter.

“Another straight-up Manhattan and Dewar’s, rocks,” he said. He turned back to Rizzo. “About the tape. Right?”

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah. About the tape. I know we agreed to sit on it. For six months. Keep Councilman Daily’s dirty little secret for a while longer. In the meantime, we’d get you over to the Plaza, courtesy of Daily and his influence.”

“Yes,” McQueen said, “and get you six months of phantom overtime to pad your pension.”

Rizzo nodded again. “Yeah, but most importantly, to buy us some time. Distance ourselves from it all, so maybe we’d get under the radar.”

The waiter arrived and placed their drinks on the table. McQueen reached for his.

“How’s that overtime thing working out?” he asked.

“Good,” Rizzo replied, with a shrug. “It ain’t exactly phantom, but that’s okay. It’s more legit this way. See, Daily set it up through a flunky of his at the Plaza. They call it Confidential Administrative Overtime. Daily’s man processes the O.T. personally, and it gets billed through the Homeland Security federal funding. City Finance never feels it, and it doesn’t show up on the yearly Six-Two overtime stats, so no red lights start flashin’ over there.”

Sipping his second drink, McQueen spoke around the rim of the glass.

“Do you have to actually do anything for it?” he asked.

Rizzo answered as he reached for his Scotch. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s a large Middle Eastern presence on the northeast side of Bay Ridge. I live on the southwest side of the Ridge, Dyker Heights. So, every so often, I drive by the northeast. Check things out. Talk to some old-timers, the remnants of the Irish and Scandinavians that used to dominate that section of the neighborhood. And I talk to some of the Asian newcomers once in a while. Then I write out a report on the local Muslim activity and fax it over to Anti-terror Intelligence. They file it away, and everybody’s happy.”

“So, okay,” McQueen said.

Rizzo nodded. “Well, by my count, the six months for that tape we’re holdin’ comes up this February. Am I right?”

McQueen shrugged. “Yeah. February.”

Rizzo put down his rock glass and leaned across the table. When he spoke, McQueen could smell the liquor on his breath.

“I need an extension, kid,” he said softly.

Rizzo pretended not to notice the relief that flickered briefly in the young cop’s eyes. He kept his own face neutral.

“Oh,” was all McQueen managed.

“Yeah,” Rizzo said. “An extension. These friggin’ tuition loans won’t go away just because I retire, and it’ll be a couple a years before Marie is a doctor and can assume the loans Jen and me owe, never mind her own. Not to mention my other two girls.”

“How much time, Joe?” McQueen asked casually.

Rizzo spread his hands and cocked his head to the side. “Not sure,” he said. “A year, maybe-say, next October. Then with the administrative O.T., plus my regular O.T., I can get out with enough pension to carry the loans till the girls can take ’em off my hands. And by then, we’ll be far enough away from it that maybe no one will connect us to it when it does go public.”