The Good Guys Read online

  O’Brien had just started making a list in his notebook of lists he intended to compile when Russo hummmmmmed in interest. “This is interesting,” she said. “Look at this.”

  He walked around the table and leaned over her left shoulder. And the extraordinarily fresh scent of whatever it was she was using in her hair hit him hard in his gender. It took him a couple of seconds to refocus on his professionalism. Russo was looking at the photograph given to her by Grace Gradinsky. It pictured Grace and the professor with another couple, sitting at a table in a restaurant. They had obviously finished dinner, as empty coffee cups and the remains of dessert littered the table. Grace and the other woman were holding cigarettes and smiling directly into the camera. From the cut of her hair and up-to-date dress it was apparent to Russo that the photograph had been taken within the past couple of years. “Who are those other people?” he asked.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Now, how do you expect me to know that? I got an idea. Why don’t we ask her?” She shook her head and returned to the photograph.

  “Well, then, what’s so interesting?”

  “Look.” She held the magnifying glass over an area of the table directly in front of the professor.

  Connor leaned forward to get a better look. “Whoa,” he said, stepping back, “you’re right. That’s the biggest damn glass of water I’ve ever seen.” She took one very deep “how long do I have to put up with this?” breath, and Connor suddenly became serious. “All right, okay, what? What’ve you got?” He looked at the picture again. Framed by the magnifying glass were a glass of water, part of a knife, a saucer with two cigarette stubs drowned in a spill of coffee, a little pillbox holding what he guessed were saccharin pills, a pack of Marlboro, and a book of matches. “Yeah? And?”

  “Check out the matches, Sherlock.”

  He looked again. In an elegant Palace Bold Script typeface the name “Gino’s” was clearly embossed on the matchbook cover. Below it, in a much smaller type partially hidden beneath the scratch strip, were the words “Maspeth, N.Y.” Connor guessed there was a phone number on the back. He stood up straight. “Okay. So what am I missing here?”

  “Don’t you know who Gino is?”

  “Lemme guess. Gino?”

  “Uh-oh, somebody hasn’t done his homework, has he? See what it says, Maspeth? Maspeth, Queens? Ring any bells?”

  He got it. Louder than the Liberty Bell. “Tony Cosentino,” he said with admiration. “Of course. Tony’s gotta be Gino, right? Damn, if I wore a hat, I’d tip it to you.” He picked up her magnifying glass and held it high in the air, carefully examining it. “I got to get me one of these.”

  The first connection had been made. Admittedly it was pretty thin, but it made complete sense. They had known from the day they overheard Bobby and Little Eddie in the social club that the professor was in some way connected to the mob. What they didn’t know was who or why. The body of Skinny Al D’Angelo had been found in a car trunk the day after the professor went missing. D’Angelo was a member of Cosentino’s crew. And here was evidence that the professor had been at Cosentino’s restaurant. Either it was a truly amazing coincidence or these men had something in common. It was the beginning of “who.”

  Searching for a loophole in her reasoning, Connor pointed out, “Well, first of all, we don’t even know for sure that this picture was taken at Gino’s. They could’ve gotten the matches some other time.”

  “Big deal. Doesn’t make any difference. I mean, we can find out easy enough where this was taken, but the fact that he’s got the matches is what matters. It’s a connection. Remember what his wife said, that they didn’t own a car? Then what the hell were they doing going all the way out to Queens for dinner?”

  “Maybe they couldn’t resist that wonderful Queens cuisine.” Connor couldn’t argue with Laura’s assessment. He’d lived in the city most of his life—and never once had he gone out to Queens for dinner. Not counting the Bridge Diner, of course, but nobody who’d ever eaten there would count it.

  “And second of all?” she asked.

  “Just kidding about that,” he admitted. Assuming Russo was right, and at this point in the investigation they had nothing else, Professor G and Skinny Al had Tony Cosentino in common. Two-Gun Tony Cosentino had been elevated to captain in the bloodletting after the sudden and expected death of Carmine Galante, who died with his lit cigar in his mouth when a shotgun was fired into his chest from about six feet away. Cosentino was considered a real heavyweight. Nobody knew for sure, but the bureau estimated he had participated in at least twelve hits. Possibly more. Thus far, though, the bureau had been unable to get anywhere near him.

  Tying together the professor and the victim, Skinny Al, opened up all kinds of possibilities. Identifying Skinny Al’s killer, or even finding out why he was killed, might lead them to the professor or, more likely—considering the players—whatever was left of the professor. Conversely, finding the professor might lead them directly to Skinny Al’s killer.

  Admittedly there were many questions this scenario didn’t begin to answer. Like who was the Russian on the telephone with the professor? And why were Skinny Al’s arms and leg practically crushed before his killers bled him to death? But it was a beginning. Connor figured it was sort of like the first words on a map, words that supposedly gave you important information but in fact told you absolutely nothing you didn’t already know: “You are here.”

  Connor was waiting with anticipation and impatience as Laura slowly worked her way through the pile of surveillance photographs. Three more pictures and they’d be out of that room. Two more . . .

  Meanwhile, he brought all the necessary paperwork right up to the minute. The primary purpose of all these reports, which when read carefully confirmed that they knew almost nothing about the “disappearance of Gradinsky, Peter NMI, Professor of Slavic Languages, Columbia University,” was to provide Jim Slattery with the official cover he needed. Few supervisors played the paper game better than Jim Slattery. Inundate headquarters with paperwork, he knew from experience, and it’d be a long time before anybody bothered looking at all of it. Long enough, he was betting, for this investigation to be concluded.

  . . . and just as Russo reached for the last photograph, a clerk walked into the room carrying a large manila envelope. Placing it on the desk, he said to her, “Here are those pictures you wanted.”

  O’Brien felt like somebody had punched him in the stomach. “Ah, Russo, c’mon. Please. This is bullshit.”

  Her elbows resting on the table, she spread her hands in supplication. “Hey, nobody’s making you stay here. Go. Please. You got something to do, go do it. Meanwhile . . .” she indicated the new pile—“I’ve got work to do.”

  He leaned way back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. In a controlled voice he asked, “Okay, let’s try it your way. What’ve we got there?”

  She held up the first photograph for him to see. It was black-and-white and pictured the body of an obese man squeezed into the trunk of a car. The lid was up as if to display the contents of the trunk. The body was lying on its left side, facing outward. His head was pushed down into his chest, probably to enable the trunk to be closed, making it impossible to see the final expression on his face—although shoving his head down into his chest had caused the skin from his fleshy neck to swell outward, much like what happens when someone sits on a water bed, forming a collar of fat into which his chin had sunk. His light-colored shirt was almost completely stained dark with blood. His left arm was under his body, and his right arm from the elbow down was bent straight backward over his hip at an impossible angle, folded back like a jacket sleeve being packed, making it obvious it had been snapped.

  A crime scene photograph is not intended to be a piece of art. Its only purpose is to record all possible details of an event at a specific time and place. Just about every violent crime scene or fatal accident is photographed from every conceivable angle. These photographs are admissi
ble as evidence during a trial. I couldn’t begin to estimate how many crime scene photographs I’ve looked at during my career, how many bodies I’ve seen pictured bloody and bent, broken and cut up. And whatever their intended purpose, these photographs never fail to stimulate the senses. It’s macabre, I know, but for me, at least, it’s impossible to look at a photograph of a corpse—usually bloodied—and not wonder about the person and how he got there. And maybe wonder what he was feeling at the last moment of his life. Having been in situations that I thought could end up with me being in one of these pictures, I remembered my own feelings. It was as much practical—how the fuck did I get here and what can I do to get out of it?—as it was nervousness, fear, or apprehension.

  O’Brien stared at the photograph of the late Alphonse D’Angelo and wondered what the hell Skinny Al had done to end up stuffed in that trunk. “Very nice,” he said finally, putting his thumbs and forefingers together to form a rectangle, then pretending to look through it at the photograph as a director might look through a lens, “although I’m not crazy about the composition. And the model ain’t so beautiful either.”

  “Look at all the blood. Old Al must’ve bled eight buckets.”

  “Gee, I’m sorry the poor man’s death affected you so terribly. Try to hold yourself together.”

  Laying down the picture, she began examining it by quadrants. She didn’t spend a lot of time looking at D’Angelo’s body. The forensic pathologist would determine what the body had to say. As she worked, she asked O’Brien, “You ever hear of anybody burning out the eardrums? What do you think that’s all about?”

  Surprisingly O’Brien hadn’t seen that many real bodies in his career. Contrary to the general belief, the bureau didn’t work many homicides. Murder is a federal crime only under very specific circumstances, for example when it is committed on federal property or across state lines. Your everyday murder isn’t something that agents can legally investigate, although the resources of the legendary FBI crime lab are always available to local law enforcement agencies. And the burned-out eardrums were completely new to him. There is a widespread belief that the mob uses some sort of code to make clear to everyone the reasons a person was killed. Leaving dimes on his closed eyes means the guy was an informer. I’ve heard of victims found with a canary in their mouth, obviously meaning they talked too much. Chopping off a victim’s hands meant he somehow violated the family’s security; he allowed someone or something to get too close. Cutting off a guy’s prick and stuffing it in his mouth meant that he had some sexual problems and maybe messed with the wrong man or woman or man’s woman. But Connor had never heard of anyone’s eardrums being burned out.

  The meaning appeared to be pretty obvious: Skinny Al had heard something he wasn’t supposed to hear and therefore had to be killed. But when dealing with the mob, Connor knew that what seems obvious may be quite different. “Hear too much evil, I guess. I mean, with these guys who knows?” He glanced through the pile of photographs of D’Angelo’s corpse in the trunk. He looked just as dead in all of them. Having seen more than enough of Skinny Al, he sighed loudly. “Russo, please,” he said, “that’s enough. Let’s get out of here.” And then, without having planned it, he added, “C’mon, I’ll buy you some dinner.”

  “Why, Agent O’Brien,” she responded, “that’d be very nice. But I think they roll the stand away at five o’clock.” As soon as she heard the words come out of her mouth, she regretted them. If she could have grabbed them out of the air and stuffed them back in, she would have done so. Laura Russo would never admit it, but she was flattered. While they’d shared many meals in the weeks they’d been working together—mostly takeout at the Country Club and in O’Brien’s car—this was the first time that O’Brien had made what sounded suspiciously like an invitation for a real dinner. Before O’Brien could respond, she tried to cover for herself. “I’d like to but I can’t. I got plans tonight.”

  Plans tonight? she thought. Plans tonight? What a poor excuse for an excuse. But having said it, she was committed to it.

  Plans tonight? O’Brien knew exactly what that meant: plans tonight was the ultimate “I can’t think fast enough to make up a believable excuse” turndown. Like every single man trapped in New York’s dating jungle, Connor had heard it before. And like pretty much every single man in New York lacking Donald Trump’s ego, he interpreted that to mean: I’d rather wax my entire body three times a week than spend one minute more with you than absolutely necessary. “That’s fine,” he stammered, “no big deal. There’s just a few things I wanted to go over. We can do it tomorrow.”

  “Great.” She sat there pretending to examine a photograph of the car trunk after Skinny Al’s body had been removed, but that was a prop to cover her embarrassment. Why, she wondered, why, why, why?

  Both O’Brien and Russo, two highly professional law enforcement officers, were desperate to get out of that room without further embarrassing themselves. Their egos were saved by the ringing telephone. Connor grabbed it. After listening for a few seconds he said, “Right away,” and hung up. “Slattery,” he told her. “He wants to see us for a minute.”

  “Let me grab my stuff,” she said, so incredibly grateful for that phone call that she had to constrain herself to pack up her belongings at a natural pace.

  Slattery was beaming when they walked into his office, but for reasons having nothing to do with the case. Minutes before, an administrative clerk in Washington had called to tell him that they were confident they knew what had happened to his personnel folder, although they had not yet found it. Until it was located, however, whenever necessary they would accept his stipulation in lieu of the proper support paperwork.

  “In other words,” he’d told the clerk, “I am, therefore I exist.”

  It was a weak joke—Slattery accepted that—but even then the officious clerk had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Instead, he cautioned him, “You really shouldn’t let something like this happen. It creates a great deal of difficulty for us.”

  He was still smiling when they sat down. “Here,” he said, handing a memo across his desk to O’Brien. “Somebody’s been using your guy’s credit card.”

  According to the National Bank of North America, which had been officially requested by the bureau to report all transactions involving this card, Peter Gradinsky’s Visa had been used the previous night to pay a $75.00 bill at the Morningside Heights Tavern, a restaurant on 118th Street. The fact that the card had been used was interesting, but it was hardly proof that the professor was alive. Slattery had used exactly the right terminology: “Somebody” had used the card. It could have been anybody. But they also knew the chances that a thief—or a killer—would risk using a victim’s credit card in the area in which the victim might be known were pretty slim. Generally, stolen credit cards are used within hours of being grabbed—before the owner can report them missing or before the owner can be reported missing—and usually a long distance from the owner’s neighborhood. So there was at least a slight reason for optimism.

  Russo also found it curious that exactly seventy-five dollars had been charged to the card. She had seven credit cards that she used too often—including J. C. Penney and Macy’s—and she could not recall a single time her total bill had come out exactly anything. Particularly such a nice round number. More likely, she figured, he was getting some cash. There was only one way to find out. “Hey, sailor,” she said to O’Brien, “still wanna take a dame to dinner?”

  The words “What happened to your plans?” had formed in his mind and were racing toward his mouth, but he caught them at the last second. “Sure,” he said. “There’s this nice little place I know on 118th Street.”

  Only after O’Brien and Russo had left his office did it occur to Slattery that somebody should inform the professor’s wife. That wasn’t his job, he knew that, and this type of information was supposed to be kept confidential. But he figured that by this time the woman would be absolutely frantic. He o
pened up the case file and dug through it until he found O’Brien’s report of his interview with . . . Slattery checked the wife’s name. Grace Gradinsky. No harm done, he decided, and picked up the telephone.

  The Morningside Heights Tavern had been carefully decorated to look as if it hadn’t been decorated. It would probably best be described as studied casual. As you entered, a long bar faced the door, stretching the width of the room almost from wall to wall. There were cash registers at both ends of the bar and large television sets suspended almost directly above them. Only one of them was on, turned to the local news. On the wall to the left a five-dollar football pool sign-up sheet announced that the Giants were three-and-a-half-point favorites over the Redskins. It was still five days before the game and most of the boxes were already filled in. Columbia University’s football schedule, cheaply framed photographs of old Columbia athletes, Ivy League pennants, and several fraternity banners were hung evenly spaced on the other walls. Booths covered with powder-blue vinyl lined the three remaining walls, and several small wooden tables were set up next to the booths, leaving the area in front of the bar empty for the meet-and-greet crowd. Connor couldn’t quite see for sure, but he would have bet his inheritance that names and political slogans had been carved into every table in the place and that there were chunks of ice at the bottom of the urinals. Connor had spent four years in campus bars exactly like this one. He decided the only thing missing from this one was the sawdust on the floor.

  There were about a dozen people in the place. Two dark corner booths were occupied by couples, a knot of coeds was gathered at one end of the bar, and at the other end one man was sitting alone, hunched over a book and a beer. The bartender was wiping glasses and hanging them mouth-down in an overhead rack, and the single waitress was serving the couples in the booths. O’Brien and Russo sat at the bar.

  The bartender was big enough to double as a bouncer. Early thirties, Connor guessed, popular with the coeds. The kind of bartender who might accurately be described as “a big lug of a guy.” “Hey,” he said pleasantly, smiling confidently, “what can I get for you?”