Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

“What’s the guy’s name?”

“We call him Zumba. He was born James Palmer.”

“The arresting is probably doing the paperwork at Central Booking right now. I can get down there in about twenty minutes. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. It’s good to know you’re a man of honor who keeps his word.”

“You know how this shit works, Papa,” Rizzo said. “I owe you. Period. Honor and words got nothin’ to do with any a this.”

Rizzo could visualize the wolflike grin of the man. “Well, what ever, Joe. Just do what you can. Zumba can’t stand a fall on an assaulting-a-cop charge. It’d ruin any chance he may still have for the Citizen of the Year award, you know?”

“Yeah, Papa. I can imagine. But remember, our deal was everybody has to be happy, not just you and this asshole. The arresting has to say okay to it. And if it’s already reached the A.D.A., he has to go for it, too. It could be a tough sell.”

“Well, from my experience with Brooklyn, Central Booking is a busy little place on Sunday morning. I doubt this minor a matter has come to the district attorney’s attention yet. It’s just a cop, just a uniform involved. See what you can do.”

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Rizzo said, then closed the phone, breaking the connection. He stood slowly, slipping on his overcoat and picking up the Impala keys.

Downstairs he intercepted Priscilla, coffee and egg sandwich in her hands. He filled her in quickly.

“Your old friend called,” he told her. “Papa Man.”

“Damn,” she said. “What does the boss of the Hell’s Angels want with you on a Sunday freakin’ morning?”

Rizzo twisted his lips. “Whaddya think he wants?”

Memory dawned in her eyes. “Oh, he’s cashin’ that ticket from the meeting you, me, and Mike had with him last summer?”

“Bingo,” Rizzo said touching a finger lightly to the tip of her nose. “I gotta run downtown to Central Booking. You stay here, hold the fort. It’s just you and me this tour. If a job does come in, stall it. If you absolutely gotta roll on it, take a uniform along. I’ll meet you at the job if you ain’t in the squad room when I get back.”

“Okay, Joe. How long you figure you’ll be?”

Rizzo shrugged. “Twenty minutes there, twenty back, twenty to sell the cop my story. Figure an hour, hour ten. Like that.”

Priscilla smiled at him coyly. “Sure you don’t want me along? I can shake some ass, bat my eyes, grease the cop a little for you.”

“No, you stay here where we both should be. Hell, maybe I’ll get lucky and it’s a straight female cop and I can shake my own ass.”

“Okay,” she said. “Just try not to throw your back out, Pops.”

Rizzo shook his head and moved past Priscilla to the door.

The Sunday-morning traffic was almost non ex is tent. As Rizzo drove toward the heart of Brooklyn, the downtown area, he considered the job at hand.

Throughout his career, Rizzo had carefully and consistently established a deep well of gratitude and obligation among his fellow officers for favors he had rendered. He had done the same with the various citizens who peopled the shadowy world of day-to-day police business. As a result, he could reach out almost at will to virtually any area within the department and collect his payback in the form of expedited ser vice, specialized assistance, or influential intervention on his behalf-all repaid debts for accommodations he had once provided. Rizzo could reach just as deeply into the dark netherworld to mobsters and street criminals for similar help. It had been essential for his success.

Now, as he sped along the Gowanus Expressway, he reflected on how, more and more, he found himself on the other end of this cynical, yet pragmatic, arrangement, rendering the payback, as was now the case. As retirements, transfers, and other attritions chipped at those in the department who owed him, and changing demographics altered the Six-Two, the pool of those Rizzo was indebted to seemed to grow proportionately.

It was not, he realized, a healthy state of affairs.

Just one more reason to retire, he thought. The more payback he rendered, and the less he received, the better the likelihood that someday it would all blow up in his face. Yet it remained an unavoidable function of the job, a one-hand-washing-the-other way of life for him. It was a minefield becoming more difficult and dangerous to navigate.

Rizzo swung the Impala off the expressway and onto Atlantic Avenue. He made a mental note to discuss this morning’s mission in more detail with Priscilla later in the day. Though he was almost certain she understood the nature of the game, he couldn’t make assumptions. This morning’s job was the perfect example. The last thing Rizzo wanted was to lend assistance of a murky legal nature to a Hell’s Angel. Yet he was bound by the agreement he had entered into with Papa Man some months before. It was not, as Papa had misstated, a matter of honor. Not at all. It was simply a function of police business. Had he reneged, he would never again be able to reach out to the Angels should the need arise.

And if he reneged often enough on his promises, word would eventually permeate the subculture of the streets, and Rizzo would no longer be trusted, no longer be able to gather the scraps of information, cooperation, and accommodations necessary to the successful plying of his trade.

That’s what he needed to impress upon Priscilla. As a detective, she should never enter into an agreement she was not fully prepared to follow through on, regardless of how distasteful or questionable in nature. The time for high-minded scruples was before the deal was struck, not afterward.

As he drove slowly along State Street, searching for a place to park in the area reserved for police and court officers, correction and probation personnel, he mulled it over.

Yes, he would explain it to Priscilla, in case she hadn’t mastered it all during her ten years in uniform. She needed to know, and it was his responsibility to make sure she did.

But what about Carol? Would he someday have to explain it all to her? Would that responsibility fall to him as well, or to some other cop, someone unknown to him. The street education of his youngest child entrusted to a stranger?

Rizzo parked the car and climbed out, slamming the door behind him.

No way, he thought. No way would he let that happen.

He turned and crossed State Street, heading for the secured police entrance at the rear of the Brooklyn Criminal Court house. He shook his mind clear of thoughts of Carol and turned once more to the task at hand.

OFFICER FREDDY Clarton was a twenty-four-year veteran, currently assigned to the Ninety-fourth Precinct patrol unit, covering the old blue-collar Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint. In three months’ time, he would retire to the small North Carolina town where his grandparents and their parents had been born. Contained within the inner plastic sleeve of his uniform cap, he carried a small single sheet calendar. As each tour ended, he carefully placed a neat, red X over the date.

“Eighty-one more days,” he said, as he sat sipping coffee with Rizzo on a small bench outside the holding pen area of Central Booking, located in the basement of the court house.

“That’s great, Freddy,” Rizzo said. “I got about a year to go myself.”

Clarton shook his head. “Too goddamned long, Sarge, too god-damned long.”

“It’s the hand I got dealt,” Rizzo answered with a shrug.

Clarton sipped his coffee, his eyes peering over the cup’s edge to Rizzo.

“So, Sarge,” he said. “You wanna get down to business?”

Rizzo had been glad to find that the arresting officer was an old vet and not some nervous rookie afraid of his own shadow. Now his appreciation for the black cop’s seniority turned to an even more comforting respect for Clarton’s street smarts and directness.