Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

Eddie told her about the first time he met Paulie Caruso. It was in the squad room in the Coney Island precinct. Paulie took him out drinking. They left the precinct in a late-model Cadillac Seville. At some point during the evening, Eddie found a green NYPD property voucher above the visor. When he read it, he realized they were cruising around in a car used in a homicide two years earlier. It was seized as evidence by Detective Paul Caruso, and he'd been examining it for 23,000 miles.

"People think money was skimmed from the Rosenfeld robbery," she said.

"I know. It was all we heard from cops for months after that. But you know how cops are. Any time someone turns in a lot of money, his brother officers say the same thing: 'I wonder how much was really there.'"

"I read the reports," she said. "I think he grabbed the money in the park that day, and someone knows."

Immediately after the shooting, Eddie drove to find a telephone to call it in. Paulie the Priest waited at the scene. Eddie found a phone near the service road. Like he told IAB, he couldn't see the Dodge Charger, and he lost sight of Paulie. They knew all this anyway; they'd checked the phone he'd used. But he was positive no one else had entered or left the lot while he was gone; he returned less than ten minutes later. He'd been able to see the entrance to the lot the whole time.

"Okay," she said. "Where do we go from here?"

Babsie meant with the case, but he hesitated, thinking she'd read his mind. He'd been thinking about her. What was the state of Babsie Panko's social life? He knew she'd been divorced for years. She hadn't mentioned boyfriends.

"To look for Sergei Zhukov," he said.

"You know where to look?"

"Richie Costa gave me some good hints."

"After he sucker punched you, he helps you out. He must have had some change of heart. I wonder what happened to make him suddenly see the light."

"I don't remember you being this sarcastic," Eddie said.

"It's become my best quality," she replied. "When are you going to follow up on Richie's good hints?"

'Tonight."

"I'll get someone to watch Grace and go with you."

"You can't, Babsie. What I'm doing isn't exactly legal."

Grace played "Earth Angel" and was dancing around, hugging an imaginary partner, assaulting him with a very theatrical smooch. Eddie imitated her, so she exaggerated even more.

"Roughly, how illegal?"

"I've answered questions all day, Babsie. Can we change the subject?"

"Okay, how about this: Is Kevin making money with this place? The neighborhood isn't what it used to be, to put it mildly."

"He's doing good now-especially since B.J. came here. Bartenders make or break your place."

For whatever reason, people were drifting back to the North End Tavern. Nights were solid and afternoons, especially Saturday, were drawing more guys, some stopping in after golf somewhere. Old faces were showing up after a spin through the old neighborhood. Most of them hadn't been on the block in twenty years.

"B.J.'s a legend," Eddie said. "He brought a following."

"And what about your following?" Babsie said. "All those fifty-year-old ex-prom queens who show up nights you're behind the stick. I hear they're cashing their alimony checks at the bar."

"Yeah, but they fall asleep by eleven."

"Granpop," Grace yelled. She stood on a wobbly chair next to a posed picture of Eddie in boxing trunks. He struck the pose for her from his seat. She put up her fists and made a valiant attempt at a game face.

"She's a great kid, Eddie. She really loves you."

"I know. She thinks I can do anything. What happens when I can't find her mother?"

"We're going to find her. If you ever let anybody help you."

"Not tonight," he said, looking up at the clock. "Tonight, I can't."

Eddie wondered why he'd never really looked closely at Babsie Panko before. Since his last drink, he'd come to think of himself as a man who'd had amnesia. The beauty of it was that the life he discovered had always been his.

"How do you think they got Paulie's head over here?" Babsie said.

"I'm thinking it either came by ship or was mailed to one of the private boxes in Brighton Beach."

"I can't get my mailman to walk up five steps," she said. "But heads they deliver."

Friday

9:45 p.m.

Sergei Zhukov's Cadillac sat at a meter in the parking lot on Brighton Eighth. The cars around it ran the high-roller gamut from world-class rides to death traps. Almost every car contained a Racing Form , a newspaper turned to the sports page, or some new casino rag with an article on the latest foolproof system. The high rollers always find the action, Eddie thought. Sitting under a streetlight with the motor running was a black Mercedes. The driver wore a Yankees hat that fit his oversized skull like a blue stocking. He flipped the pages of a magazine and looked up every now and then to check for newly arrived players. He was Eddie's backup plan. If what Richie Costa had said about the luggers was true, plan A needed to work.

Thirty minutes prior to closing, Eddie entered M & I International Foods. He asked for the catering manager, then walked the aisles while they hunted her down. Display cases loomed on both sides of him, food piled shoulder-high. Blinis, dumplings, cheeses, and stuffed cabbage stretched to the back of the store, where you turned into a larger room with counters for the cooked foods. Russian émigrés who remembered long breadlines and meatless months under seven decades of Soviet rule had to be overwhelmed in the M & I. Right there, on Brighton Beach Avenue, were two floors of meats, sausages, chickens, prepared foods, caviar, chocolate, and breads. It must have seemed like a dream.

During his years working for Lukin, Eddie often accompanied him on tops to M & I. The old man loved to force-feed him samples of dozens of different smoked fish, endless shish kebabs, specialties like Georgian eggplant caviar, and brined cabbage turned a ruby red with beets. "Look at this bounty, Russian bounty," Lukin would say. He once told Eddie that one thing the Russian mafiya had in common with American cops was that they both hated the Communists. The bastards deprived the Russian people of the right to enjoy their own food. Then he'd hand Eddie a spoonful of smetana , a thick Russian sour cream ladled out of vats, or some lethal Russian mustard or horseradish.

The women who worked the counters and cash registers all wore starched white uniforms and lace caps. So when Eddie saw a hatchet-faced woman in a tweed business suit marching toward him, he knew she was management.

"Hi, I'm Desmond Shanahan," Eddie said. He apologized for not having brought his business cards, then explained he was a business rep for an international artichoke dealer. His company was trying to break into the Russian market and had invited a group of Russian businessmen to discuss the possibilities. They wanted to impress a maximum of thirty guests with a feast of M &

I's best, delivered to the hotel conference room. Money was no object.

She walked Eddie through the aisles, suggesting various options. He told her the exact menu could be worked out later. He had a budget of ten thousand dollars but could go higher. Only one problem: The delivery would have to be late. What would be the latest they could deliver? She said special arrangements could be made for an order that substantial. "Select the best," he said, encouraging her; "do not cut corners."

He asked if they often did late deliveries. "In fact," she said, "we have one going out later tonight."

"I know I'm accused of being too thorough," Eddie said, "but could I see the vehicle you use for these deliveries?"

She looked puzzled, but she took him out behind the store and pointed to a fairly late-model white Dodge van with the company logo on the side. It was the only delivery vehicle, and it was cleaned on a daily basis. Then Eddie gave her his usual Desmond Shanahan Manhattan phone number, which he knew would ring endlessly on some desk in the office of the New York City Employee Benefits Programs on Church Street. He took her card and assured her he'd be in contact on Monday.