Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

It was nine-fifteen, just after the official end of visiting hours. Rizzo and Jackson, after making their introductions, had taken seats next to the large hospital bed. Tucci, pale and drained-looking, sat propped against three pillows, his wounded foot elevated and bandaged.

The young man tried to smile. “I’ve had better nights, Sarge,” he said. “Lot better.”

“I’ll bet,” Rizzo said. “Then again, you had worse, too. Like for instance, last night-when this guy shot you.”

Tucci nodded, his lips tightly compressed.

Rizzo shifted in his seat, pulling out his note pad.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened, Gary,” Priscilla asked. “Start from the beginning at the pizza place.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo added, clicking his Parker. “Tell us.”

The young man sighed and nodded again. After a moment, he began his narrative, adding nothing Rizzo and Priscilla hadn’t heard from the other witnesses. When he was finished, his eyes were moist with the memory, but no tears escaped.

Rizzo shook his head. “Sorry, kid,” he said, “but sometimes shit like this happens.”

The words brought a pensive look to the man’s face. “Yeah,” Tucci said. “Shit does happen.”

“Ever see this guy before Monday?” Priscilla asked.

“No. Never.”

“Do you think you can I.D. him?”

“Absolutely.” Here Tucci’s expression hardened. “I got close enough to ’im to clean his clock pretty friggin’ good. That uppercut was always my money punch.”

Now Rizzo spoke. “Yeah,” he said, “Nunzio was pretty impressed. Said you knocked the guy up on his toes.”

Tucci nodded. “Damned right. And you know what? I pulled that punch. I didn’t wanna knock the guy’s jaw up into the base of his god-damned skull. I figured he was just an asshole with too many drinks in him. If I’da known he was gonna cripple me, I’da beat him to death.”

Rizzo reached out and patted Tucci on his uninjured leg. “You handled it just right. You couldn’t know the guy’d come gunnin’ for you.”

Tucci shook his head angrily. “He told me he’d kill me, said it right out loud. Son of a bitch, if I believed him, I woulda pounded his face into that pizza booth.”

“Okay, Gary,” Priscilla said gently. “Don’t be getting all wound up, popping a stitch or spiking your pressure.”

“Okay,” Tucci said, “okay.” Then he smiled. “At least I cracked the asshole’s teeth for him. I can settle for that, I guess.”

“Good for you,” Priscilla said.

Rizzo rubbed an eye, soothing a slight tic. “Broke his teeth?” he asked. “How you know that?”

“I heard it,” Tucci said. “When I connected with that short right uppercut and slammed his mouth shut. I’ve heard it before, in the ring. If a guy don’t bite down right on his mouthpiece and he takes a hard hit, ’specially an uppercut, he can bust a tooth or two. This guy in the pizza place, he didn’t have a mouthpiece. And from the sound, I’d say he cracked more than one tooth. I hope he loses ’em, the bastard.”

Rizzo sat back and turned to Priscilla.

“The kid just saved us some shoe leather, Cil,” he said. Then, turning back to Tucci, added, “We just may get this guy. Lock his ass up. He may have some rough nights ahead of him in stir on Riker’s Island.”

Rizzo stood. “We’ll see,” he said.

Later, riding down in the elevator, Rizzo turned to Priscilla.

“You know,” he said, “I was so impressed with your bar idea and my hunter theory, I coulda missed this.”

Priscilla nodded. “Yeah. Busted teeth. The guy had to get treated for that.”

“Yeah,” Rizzo responded. “And if our other idea ’bout him being local is correct, then dollars to doughnuts his family dentist is from the neighborhood, too. Hell, my guy practices about two blocks from where I live. Has his office right on the lower level of his house on Tenth Avenue.”

“So we track him through the dentists, not the bars or hunting leads,” Priscilla said.

“Yes,” Rizzo said as they reached the lobby and left the elevator. “The bar and hunter stuff, that was all theoretical. The busted teeth, that’s fact. We go with fact over theory every time.”

As they neared the gray Impala, parked at the side of the ambulance entrance ramp, Rizzo shook his head.

“Now I gotta go back to Vince and tell him to hold off on that artist request. And him the guy pushin’ us to see the vic before running off half cocked, like a couple a half-assed rookies.”

Priscilla laughed, her face beaming. “Instead a just one half-assed rookie, eh, Joe?” she said.

“Yeah,” Rizzo answered, pointedly glancing behind his partner. “But from where I’m standin’, there ain’t nothin’ half-assed about you, honey.”

Again Priscilla laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Karen mentions that once in a while. With the same dopey grin you got now.”

WHEN PRISCILLA arrived at the Six-Two at four p.m. Wednesday, she found her partner at his desk, sipping coffee from a paper cup and leafing idly through a Daily News.

As she reached the desk, Rizzo greeted her. She sat down. “I thought I’d find you workin’ the horn to all the dentists in the precinct,” she said to him. “Isn’t that the excuse you used to grab some early overtime? Takin’ a little break, are we?”

“Nope,” Rizzo said. “Done with that. I hit gold on the eleventh call. Guy over on Twenty-fourth Avenue.” He looked down at the scribbled note sitting atop a messy pile of papers on his desk. “A Dr. William Davenport, DDS. I spoke to his receptionist or secretary or what ever they call themselves. She said they had to schedule an emergency appointment for nine a.m. Tuesday morning, two hours before their regular office hours. The call came in Monday night through the doc’s ser vice.”

Priscilla smiled. “Let me guess: couple of broken teeth?”

Rizzo nodded. “Yep. Two cracked molars and a chipped incisor.” He paused and sipped at his coffee. “Wanna hear the best part?”

Priscilla shifted in her seat, crossing her leg. “It gets better?” she asked.

“Yeah. Guy said he broke the teeth in a little accident he had. Seems he was out huntin’ all weekend, and Monday night, guess what happened?”

“A bear smacked his dumb-ass head and busted his teeth?” Priscilla asked.

“Not exactly,” Rizzo said. “Seems he tripped on something and banged his jaw. On the tailgate of his pickup truck.”

“Well, well.”

“Yeah. And right about then, the woman I was talkin’ to started getting a little uptight. Thought she was fuckin’ with doctor-patient stuff, so she put the doc on. His office hours end at five today. We got an appointment with him then.” Rizzo peered at Priscilla’s mouth. “You got any dental issues? Maybe we can get you a free cleaning or something.”

She stood up. “I’ll pass, Joe. Tell you what, I have to fill out the union forms so they can switch me over from the PBA. I need to get them to the delegate’s in-box today. So how far is it to this guy’s office?”

“Ten minutes. You got plenty of time. I’ll be waitin’ here.”

JUST BEFORE five, Rizzo at the wheel, the two detectives drove toward the dental office of Dr. William Davenport.

“So how’s the redecorating project going?” Rizzo asked.

“Okay, I guess. Don’t ask what it’s gonna cost. Me and Karen coulda done the whole deal, painted all four rooms in a couple of days. For two, three hundred bucks.”

“Yeah, well, I’d be happy I was you,” Rizzo said. “Get the in-laws to pick up the tab, avoid all that aggravation and mess. You oughta count your blessings.”

“Yeah, I know. And they can afford it, that’s for sure. But this is just an apartment, not a condo. Lot a money to spend on something we don’t own.”