Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

Priscilla smiled. “I take it he died young. Did he leave a good-looking corpse?”

Rizzo shook his head. “Matter a fact, no. Actually, one of the ugliest I ever seen. See, I was workin’ patrol back then, in the Seven-Six. One night, about five, five-thirty in the mornin’, we get a radio call. Blue Caddy, plate so and so, just stolen, vicinity Blippety-blip Street. Well, guess what? I’m at the wheel, sittin’ at a red light on Court Street, and the friggin’ Caddy comes up President and turns onto Court, right in front of us.”

“It’s good to get lucky sometimes,” Priscilla said.

“Yeah. So I hit the lights and go after him. Guy speeds up, he’s gonna run. So we chase. Fuckin’ guy is doing damn near ninety, right on Court Street. I figure he’s gonna blow a light, broadside some citizen comin’ home from his night shift, and kill the poor schmuck. So I shut the lights, back off, break pursuit. My partner’s calling in the location and direction of the Caddy, all by the book.”

Rizzo took the last bite of his sandwich and began crumbling the wrapper as he went on. “So the Caddy never slows down, I never seen his brake lights come on, not even flicker. By now, he’s doing about a hundred, at least. A garbage truck comes up a side street, catches the green light at the corner and makes a right turn, goin’ maybe ten, fifteen miles an hour, right in front of the Caddy. The car smashes right into the truck. Sounds like a fuckin’ bomb goin’ off. The hood of the Caddy goes under the back of the truck, and the garbage hopper tears the whole top off the Caddy, along with Enzo’s fuckin’ head. Paramedics found what was left of it under a Pontiac parked forty feet from the impact area.”

Priscilla winced. “Ick,” she said.

“Yeah,” Rizzo said, “ick. Well, that was the end of Uncle Enzo. Gave himself a death sentence for grand theft auto, the asshole.”

“So, Zee-Boy wasn’t even born yet, but he figures the whole thing was your fault. Right?”

Rizzo laughed. “Exactly. So we gotta figure a little friction when we go see him.”

“Fuck him if he can’t see the humor in any of this,” she said with a shrug. “And when we do see him, is that when we go to the plan B that you mentioned the other day?”

He nodded. “See, with Zee-Boy ready to move up the junior mafia food chain, I’m bettin’ he don’t want any agita from The Chink.”

Priscilla frowned. “The Chink? Quattropa?” “Yeah. Unfortunate nickname in this particular case, ain’t it? Can you hear Cornelia Hom if we let it slip in front of her?”

“Yeah, maybe we call him Mr. Quattropa when we’re around her.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Rizzo agreed. “Anyway, if Zee-Boy does have some loose cannon robbin’ old ladies on Quattropa’s turf, we can maybe squeeze the kid to self-police. Remember the old man’s attitude about local street crime.”

Priscilla shook her head in disbelief. “This teenage gang shit is weird. I thought the only ones left were in the ghetto. Never realized there were any working-class white-boy gangs runnin’ around.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still the old days around here, Cil, in a lotta ways. Next door, the Six-Eight has two of their own gangs-The Monarchs and The Midgets. They mostly steal cars and sell ’em to the chop shops for the parts. Matter a fact, some kids register their family cars with the gangs. They drive over, show the car, ask for a bye. That way, maybe it won’t get stolen.”

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Nineteen-fifties stuff.”

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah. But there’s some signs of modernization. When I was a kid, the girls were just gang mascots, trophies. Now, The Monarchs got a separate female division and The Midgets actually integrate the girls. ’Cause of all this women’s lib bullshit they grew up with, I guess.”

“See, Joe, there you go,” Priscilla said. “You run hot and cold with this. You talk about your girls like equals, you raise ’em to be what they wanna be, then you say something like you just said. And freak out about Carol wanting to come on the job. You don’t make sense, Partner. Is it real or is it bullshit? Make up your freakin’ mind.”

“Take it easy,” he said. “Don’t get nuts. I’m just sayin’-”

She held up her hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re sayin’. What I’m wonderin’ is do you know what the fuck you’re sayin’?”

“Well, between my three girls, my wife, and now you, I guess I’ll get straightened out eventually.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Now let’s go see Zee-Boy. I gotta admit, I’m a little curious, Joe. A little curious.”

The Rebels’ headquarters was located on a mixed commercial-residential block of Seventeenth Avenue. For de cades the storefront had housed a family-operated tailor shop that had closed following the death of its elderly proprietors, Salvatore and Letizia Tommasino.

“I used to bring my family’s clothes here when I was a kid,” Rizzo told Priscilla as they pulled up in the Impala. “My grandparents’ house was four blocks from here,” he added with a small shake of his head. “Old man Tommasino musta flipped over in his grave when these jerk-offs rented the place for their hangout.”

“Well,” Priscilla said, “time marches on. Things change.”

Rizzo grunted and unsnapped his shoulder harness. “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “But just once, one fuckin’ time, I’d like ta see some-thin’ change for the better. One fuckin’ time.”

Priscilla swung her door open. “Open your eyes a little more, Partner,” she said over her shoulder. “Plenty of good stuff happens. You just gotta look for it.”

“Yeah, Cil, sure. Wait’ll you meet these fuckin’ characters, see how la-di-da you’re feelin’ then.”

They strode to the front door, solid metal with a small frosted window at eye level. Rizzo rapped hard on the door, then twisted the knob and walked in, Priscilla following.

The front room, which had once housed the store’s counter and cash register, now contained a small television, scattered chairs, and a wooden rack holding a radio and various pieces of sporting equipment. There was no one in the room, and Rizzo turned his eyes to the right. A doorway covered with a heavy dark red curtain led to the larger rear room where dry cleaning and tailoring had once been done. From past visits, Rizzo knew the back room was now divided into three smaller rooms used for various purposes by The Rebels.

After a moment, the curtain stirred. A slight, pale teenager peered out from behind it, a frown on his lips.

“Who’re you?” he asked.

Rizzo slipped the shield from his pants pocket, flashing it briefly.

“Zee-Boy around?” he asked.

The boy shrugged. “I dunno,” he said, his eyes falling from Rizzo’s.

“Go find him, kid. Tell him Rizzo’s here.”

After a moment’s pause, the teen shrugged once again. “Okay,” he said, releasing the curtain and disappearing behind it.

Rizzo turned to Priscilla. “Let’s make ourselves at home,” he said, crossing to a worn, upholstered chair near the television and dropping himself into it. She followed, but remained standing, her back to the painted storefront window behind her.

After a moment, Costanzo Intrafiore, Zee-Boy to the locals, strode into the room. He stood five feet seven, stocky, his dark hair buzz-cut short, his black eyes small and hard. He smiled a cold greeting at Rizzo, glancing only briefly at Jackson.

“Hey, Joe,” he said, a sneer on his lips. “Come to kill another Rebel?”

“Not today, kid,” Rizzo said. “Some other time maybe.”

“Whaddya want then?” Intrafiore said.

“Business, Zee-Boy. I wanna talk business.” Now Rizzo glanced to Priscilla, then back to Zee-Boy. “ We wanna talk business.”