Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

“That’s unusual for this particular neighborhood. We don’t have a lot of street robberies in this sector of the precinct. The assigned detectives were looking at the other two cases, looking for a link. So, our visit here today isn’t the first police action taken. But, again, I apologize for the delay in getting out here.”

Cornelia Hom nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

“The other two victims were Italian-American, so the common links were age, method, and time of assault,” Rizzo said. “So if they are linked, we’re not looking at a bias crime.”

“And the muggers?” Cornelia asked.

“Mugger,” he corrected. “Looks to be a lone operator.” Now Rizzo turned back to the elderly couple. “And just as you reported in your case, the perpetrator in the other two cases is also described as being Caucasian.”

Cornelia Hom nodded again. Both elderly victims smiled at Rizzo, then Priscilla, but remained silent.

“All right then, Sergeant,” Cornelia said. “Would you like to question my grandparents?”

Rizzo picked up his pen. “Yes,” he said. “If there’s a problem with language, I assume you can help out?”

She smiled. “I speak fluent Chinese in four dialects. I also speak Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and some Thai. At Morgan Chase, I’m the Eastern accounts liaison officer.”

“Okay,” Rizzo said, then turned to the victims.

“I was glad to hear you weren’t seriously injured,” he said. “Just pushed around a bit and, of course, badly frightened. You were seen at the emergency room and released, correct?”

“Yes,” Hom Feng said with a short nod of his head.

“Good,” Rizzo replied, smiling into the dark, friendly eyes, wide set in the old man’s weathered face.

“So,” he continued, “according to the Aided Report the uniformed officers filed, the incident took place on the corner of Seventy-first Street and Fifteenth Avenue, correct?”

Hom Fen frowned. “No,” he said with the same short nod. “Seventy-second.”

Rizzo rubbed at his eye, looking again to his notes.

“The cops who responded said Seventy-first in the report,” he said. “Is that wrong?”

Cornelia Hom leaned forward. “Is it of some importance, Sergeant?” she asked.

Rizzo nodded. “It could be. This happened at about nine-thirty at night, correct?”

Cornelia glanced to her grandfather.

“Yes,” he said.

“But Seventy-second Street, not Seventy-first?” Rizzo asked.

“Yes,” Hom Feng repeated.

Rizzo glanced to Cornelia, a question in his eyes.

She smiled at him. “Yes, Sergeant. They are old. But they are both sharper than I am. I may not know what corner I’m on, but I assure you, they do.” She turned slightly in her seat, facing her grandparents.

“May I?” she asked with a glance to Rizzo.

He sat back in his seat. “I wish you would.”

She spoke in rapid and precise lyrical Cantonese, eliciting a smile of pride on both elderly faces. It was her grandmother, Hom Bik, who responded. Her voice was strong and clear, also lyrical in her native tongue.

Cornelia turned to Rizzo. “They are certain, Sergeant. The attack took place on Seventy-second and Fifteenth, the northeast corner to be exact. Afterward, they walked over to the next street, Seventy-first, because there was a store open there, a late-night grocery. That’s where the police were called from. Neither of them has a cell phone.”

“Yeah. I figured. My mother is seventy-eight and she just agreed to get cable TV,” Rizzo said.

Cornelia smiled. “Generational traits transcend cultures, I guess.”

“Seems like it.” Rizzo cleared his throat, turning again to Hom Feng and his wife. “So,” he said, “you were attacked right on the corner, right in front of the schoolyard? The P.S. one-twelve school-yard on the corner?”

“Yes,” said Hom Feng. “Schoolyard.”

Rizzo turned to Priscilla. “You may be my lucky charm, Detective Jackson,” he said with a wink. “Why don’t you ask the rest of the questions? I’ll take some notes.”

He turned back to the Homs. “This might take awhile,” he said.

“Time well spent, I think. Time well spent,” Rizzo added.

LATER, SITTING in the Impala in front of the Hom residence, Priscilla recorded and expanded her notes while the minute details of the interview were still fresh in her mind.

Rizzo turned to her.

“Like I told them,” he said, “muggings around here are rare. Only time we see one is when some asshole junkie gets so strung out, he forgets to be afraid and grabs some old lady’s purse.”

“Afraid? Afraid of what?” she asked, without looking up from her pad.

“Afraid of Louie Quattropa. Remember your first day in the precinct? We drove around and I pointed out the Starlight Lounge? That’s Quattropa’s base of operations. He’s the Brooklyn mob boss, commands the old Columbo gang. Louie takes a hard line with local street crime, especially since it don’t put any money in his pocket. He thinks he’s building goodwill in the neighborhood by enforcing the laws he deems worthy of enforcin’.”

She looked up from her writing. “Enforcing how?” she asked.

“Oh, kinda like Genghis fuckin’ Khan enforced the law. With a heavy hand.” Rizzo dug out a piece of Nicorette. “If you’re gonna work the precinct, you oughta know its history,” he said. “You know, like when you were assigned the Upper East Side and you knew where all the ‘Jackie-O slept here’ signs were located. Like that.”

“Okay, Joe. Educate me.”

“Well, years ago some asshole decided to rob the famous jeweled crown that was on display in the local parish, Regina Pacis. Quattropa wasn’t the boss of all bosses then, just the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst capo. About a month later, the crown comes back to the church by parcel post. Then the cops in the Seven-Six find a local b and e man with his hands chopped off, two slugs in the back of his skull, and a crucifix nailed to his forehead. Theory is, the guy’s the one who stole the crown, and he had pissed off Quattropa.”

Priscilla turned back to her notes. “Oh,” she said. “So it went like that.”

“Yeah. It went like that. It always goes like that when you mix righteous indignation with a murderous, megalomaniacal personality.”

“Megalo-fuckin’-maniacal?” Priscilla said. “You takin’ vocabulary lessons?”

“Maybe it’s me should be the friggin’ writer,” he said.

Shaking her head and smiling, she agreed.

He resumed his tale. “Last time we figure Quattropa stepped in was ’bout four, five years ago. When this crazy kid from Sixty-fifth Street wound up frozen solid, a kid all the cops knew, Perry Pino. Took two days to thaw him out.”

Priscilla looked up, her eyes wide. “Now that story you gotta tell me, Joe.”

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle, “all the boys and girls like that one. See, down one of these blocks, I forget which one, there’s a free-standin’ ice pavilion. About twenty-five feet long, ten feet high, with steps leadin’ up to a platform in front of it. You put your money in the slot, and the thing dispenses giant bags of ice. Ten, twenty pounds, what ever you want. Lotsa local businesses use it-restaurants, fish markets, like that. So, one day, this old lady from the neighborhood, she goes to the pavilion to get some ice. She’s throwing a birthday party for her grandson and she’s making home-made ice cream, havin’ a backyard cookout, real Norman Rockwell shit, Brooklyn style. Well, seems like our boy, Perry, was in need of a few bucks. Gas money, maybe, for his shiny hot-rod Camaro. So he decides to mug the old gal. Trouble was, somebody saw him do it, somebody close to Quattropa.”