Red Angel (2 page)

“Let’s go detect,” he said.

Giovanni “John the Boss” Rossi’s home was a stately, three-story pile of bricks situated behind a high, thick hedge on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway. The house was only three miles from Coney Island, and Pitts had already put in a request
that they drive to Nathan’s and “scarf down a couple of hot dogs” before returning to Manhattan.

Pitts was an enormous man who ate like there were two of him. He was six-two, and an easy two hundred and thirty pounds, and despite a protruding gut, everything about him was solid and formidable. He had a bristling crew cut and a square, flat street fighter’s face, and the largest pair of hands Devlin had ever seen. They were the kind of hands that would look comfortable holding nothing less than a leg of lamb.

He also had one of the worst personnel jackets Devlin had ever read. A twenty-seven-year man who had specialized in homicide most of his career, Pitts had a long list of brutality complaints—none ever proven—to go with an equally impressive record of arrests and convictions. He was forty-eight years old, three years shy of a three-quarter-pay pension, and most of the other bosses in the department believed he would be bounced off the force before he ever reached it. Devlin thought he was the best working street detective on his squad.

Pitts parked their unmarked car in front of Rossi’s driveway, effectively blocking any exit, and smiled at the two goons guarding the entrance. They were both in their early thirties, and despite the July heat, each of their wide bodies was covered by a windbreaker. Pitts had no doubt about what the jackets were concealing.

One of the goons took two steps forward. “Move the fuckin’ car,” he snapped.

Pitts turned to Devlin and shook his head. “Do you believe this shit? Every fucking garbanzo street punk in this city can spot an unmarked car three blocks away. These two ‘Mafia killers’ “—he made quotes in the air to surround the words—“they think we’re here to visit our fucking guinea aunt, who lives across the street.”

“Disabuse them of the notion,” Devlin said.

Pitts displayed his detective’s shield from the breast
pocket of his suit coat, then pushed open the door. He emerged from the car like a bull entering a Spanish bullring, took three quick steps to the man who had spoken, grabbed him with one ham-sized hand, and propelled him toward the trunk of the car.

“Spread ‘em, asshole,” he growled. He turned to the second man. “Join him, you piece of dog shit, before I put my foot halfway up your ass.”

When Devlin reached the back of the car, Pitts had already relieved the pair of matching Browning nine-millimeter automatics. Devlin handed Pitts his pair of cuffs and inclined his head toward the center of the car. Pitts grinned and quickly lowered the driver and passenger windows, then used his cuffs and Devlin’s to manacle the men hand to hand so their arms were encircling the centerpost of the car.

“We got fuckin’ licenses for them pieces,” one of the men shouted.

Pitts reached out and pinched his cheek. “That’s good, Cheech. You show ‘em to us when we come out.”

“Hey, you can’t leave us here like sittin’ fuckin’ ducks.” It was the second man. His voice sounded like gravel rolling around in a dryer.

Pitts gave him a cold grin. “Quack, quack,” he said.

Rossi’s front door was opened by a woman so frail and ancient that her skin seemed nearly transparent. There was no smile or hint of welcome on her weathered face, and her soft brown eyes turned hard and glaring as she took in the inspector’s shield that Devlin held out to her.

“Don Giovanni is sick. Go away,” she snapped.

Devlin tried a smile, but it only caused the woman to step forward, further blocking their way. “I can’t just go away,” he said softly. “Please tell Mr. Rossi that Inspector Devlin and Detective Pitts are here to see him.”

“It’s all right, Anna.”

The voice came from behind the woman. Devlin looked
past her into the foyer and saw Mattie “the Knife” Ippolito standing in the doorway of an adjoining room.

Ippolito didn’t look like a mob enforcer, especially one whose personal body count would supposedly fill a small warehouse. He was tall and slender, with thin, ascetic features, and Devlin had always thought he could pass for a Catholic priest if you dressed him in a Roman collar. Only his weasel’s eyes gave him away. He’d be a priest who’d happily steal the congregation’s bingo money.

Devlin approached the man and found that he was now blocking the way to the next room. At six-one, Ippolito stood fairly even with Devlin, but gave away a good twenty pounds.

“You want to take us to the Bathrobe, Mattie?” Devlin made the suggestion with a small, hard-eyed smile. “Or should I just toss you out of the way and find him myself?”

Ippolito shook his head with mock sadness. “Hey, we could be nice about this, you know? Don Giovanni, he’s sick, just like the old lady tol’ you. All I’m asking here is a little respect.”

“Hey, Mattie, we could respectfully drag his ass down to headquarters. How about that?” Pitts had come up beside Devlin, hovering like some intimidating specter ready to be unleashed.

“All right. All right. Let them in. We’ll have the place fumigated later.”

Devlin smiled at the sound of Rossi’s crackling, rasping voice. Pitts’s suggestion mat they drag him down to headquarters had momentary merit. It would be a waste of time, of course. It would prove useful only if Columbo-family hit men were waiting when he left One Police Plaza. But the mayor would not be amused by a mob shoot-out one block away from City Hall.

Rossi was seated in a wingback chair when they entered the room. His small, frail body was covered by a silk
bathrobe over silk pajamas, his rattier, moth-eaten attire being reserved for public appearances. His feet were clad in slippers, revealing bony, painfully white ankles.

“So, the New York Police Department’s inspector of detectives. Such an honor.” Rossi’s chin was elevated and seemed to point at Devlin. The pose was a replica of the portrait that hung above the mantel behind him—Rossi’s hero, II Duce, at the height of his power, when all the trains in Italy ran on time.

“How old are you now, Devlin?” he continued. “Thirty-eight?” He shook his head. “Amazing. I never thought you’d live past thirty-six. God has been good to you.”

Devlin glared at him. It was two years ago that Rossi tried to have him killed. “You did your best, Bathrobe. It just wasn’t good enough.”

Rossi wagged a finger. “Hey, that’s an ugly rumor. I’m seventy-three, a sick old man. The doctors say I’m dying.” A small smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. “Besides, if I wanted you dead, the worms would already be eating your eyes.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “But, instead, you’ll probably go to
my
funeral.”

In spite of himself, Devlin smiled at the man’s chutzpah. He raised his eyes to the portrait of Mussolini. “They tell me that back in forty-five, when you saw the newspaper pictures of II Duce hanging by his feet, you wept.”

Rossi nodded. “I even sent flowers to Italy.”

Devlin stared at him, unmoved. “I’ll send flowers for you, too, Rossi. But I think I’ll skip the wake.”

Rossi let out a low cackle. “See, that’s the difference between us. Me? I’d come to
your
wake. And I’d
piss
in your coffin.”

Rossi’s laughter grew, then he turned to Ippolito. “This is a hard man, Mattie. Don’t let him fool you. You see that scar on his cheek?” He waited while Ippolito looked. “A crazy cop gave him that, five, maybe six years ago. And, after he
did, Devlin blew that cop away.” He widened his eyes, feigning surprise. “That’s right, the man’s a cop killer, just ask him.”

“Shut up, Rossi.” It was Pitts, and the words came with a growl.

Rossi ignored him. “This crazy cop, he cut the inspector’s arm, too—cut it so bad Devlin retired on disability. Took a job as chief of police in some shithole town in Vermont.” He glanced back at Devlin. “You didn’t think I knew so much about you, eh?” He turned back to Ippolito and regretfully shook his head. “But then he came back. Seems one of those crazy serial killers was out to get an old girlfriend of his. So Devlin here, he comes back, and this killer ends up dead, too, and now his old girlfriend is his new girlfriend again. Just like fucking Hollywood. They live together with Devlin’s daughter in some hotsy-totsy loft down in SoHo. It’s a beautiful story.”

Rossi’s eyes went back to Devlin and the two men glared at each other. The scar on Devlin’s cheek had turned white, a telltale sign that anger had reached the edge of control. Devlin’s lover, Adrianna, and his daughter, Phillipa, had been with him two years ago when Rossi’s killers had come. The threat that it could happen again was clear.

Hatred fled Rossi’s eyes as quickly as it had come, and he turned back to Ippolito. “But the story’s not over, Mattie. There’s more. Devlin gets the killer, and he gets the girl. It’s all beautiful, like I said. But then the mayor comes to him”—he raised a finger—“the mayor, no less. You got that?”

“I got it,” Ippolito said.

“And the mayor asks him to come back to work for the city. But not just as some shitheel detective, like he was before—but to come back as
inspector of detectives.
And working exclusively for the mayor, himself.” He paused for effect. “You know what that means, Mattie?”

“No. I don’t know what that means.”

Rossi wagged another educating finger. “That, my friend, means that Devlin, here, can supersede
anybody
in the police department—even the
chiefs.
” He shook his head. “Can you imagine what it would mean if the crooks did something like that? Chaos, my friend. Chaos.” He waved his hand in a circle. “Soldiers superseding capos. Capos superseding bosses. It would be crazy. Everybody would be at everybody’s throats.”

“Crazy,” Ippolito said.

Rossi’s finger shot up again. “Maybe that’s why the other cop bosses don’t like Inspector Devlin.” He turned back to Devlin, his eyes brimming hatred again. “You think maybe those other bosses wouldn’t go to your funeral, Devlin?”

Devlin returned the stare. “I’ll be happy as long as you’re there, Bathrobe. Pissing in my coffin.”

Rossi threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t like you, Devlin. But I like you.” The hatred returned. “So why the fuck are you here? Tell me quick. I feel an attack coming on. And then I won’t be able to talk to you no more.”

“I’m here to tell you it’s time to retire, Bathrobe. To go someplace nice and sunny, and let all the killing stop.”

“Retire from what, Devlin? I’m already retired. I even get Social Security from the government.” He cackled again.

“Keep laughing, Bathrobe. They got another one of your boys, today.” It was Pitts. He was grinning. “Vinnie Big Head. All that’s left is a big grease spot on Broome Street.”

Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Makes you happy, huh? So you come out here, and you handcuff my people to your car. Oh, yeah, I saw that
shit.
You’re hoping, maybe, some shooters come by and kill them, too. Well, fuck you.” Rossi jabbed a finger into his cadaverous chest. His hawklike nose and jutting chin pushed forward. “I’ll be here when all of you are fucking dead. You tell that to the fucking mayor. Tell
him
to fucking retire.”

“So your doctors are wrong, huh?”

Rossi’s head snapped back to Devlin. He was smiling again, and his eyes glittered with a touch of madness. “I got a new doctor. A kind of doctor you never heard of.” His smile widened, revealing ancient, crooked, yellow teeth. “But you will, Devlin. I promise you. And you’ll be amazed at the miracles this doctor can do.”

“I don’t think he fucking likes you.”

Pitts was driving toward Nathan’s, his hotdog request having been approved. Devlin stared out the passenger window, watching the neighborhood become rougher and more battered as they headed south.

“The man’s crazy as a bedbug. I never recognized that before. Now I’m sure of it.”

Pitts had pulled up at a stoplight. He turned in his seat. “Don’t fucking believe it for a minute. Old Bathrobe is the best fucking dago actor since Robert De Niro.”

Devlin thought about the not-so-veiled threat Rossi had made against his family. It was stupid, and Rossi wasn’t a stupid man. Maybe it was because he was dying, and felt he had nothing to lose. If so, it would make him even more dangerous.

“Too bad those two bodyguards had carry permits for their weapons,” Devlin said. “It would have been nice to lock their asses up, then drop a dime to the Columbo family that the Bathrobe was sitting there with only the Knife protecting him.”

Pitts let out a little cackle. He enjoyed that idea. Then he turned serious. “Hey, that’s another thing. I wanna know the name of the judge who approved those permits, and the name of the scumbag boss on The Job who let them slip through unchallenged. We find that out, we got two probables for Rossi’s pad.”

“It’s already on my list,” Devlin said. “I’ll have Stan Samuels digging into it before the day’s out.” He pointed a finger at Pitts. “And no cracks about Stan,” he warned.

Pitts called Samuels “the Mole,” because of his love of burrowing into long-forgotten records, a denigration of the very talent that made him an essential part of Devlin’s five-man team. Everyone on the squad had a nickname—the more derogatory of which had been coined by Pitts. Ramon Rivera, a self-proclaimed Latin love machine and Devlin’s computer expert, was called “Boom Boom.” Red Cunningham, a three-hundred-pound, baby-faced hulk who could plant a bug anywhere Devlin wanted one, was “Elephant Ass.” And Sharon Levy, a beautiful, redheaded lesbian sergeant, who was Devlin’s second in command and who ran the squad like a marine drill instructor, had become “Sergeant Muffdiver”—although even Pitts lacked the guts to say it to her face.

Pitts pulled up in front of the original Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand—still a Coney Island landmark—and glanced hungrily at the take-out counter. “You want something. A couple of dogs, maybe a knish?” he asked.

He watched Devlin shake his head. The man was tense; pissed off, Pitts thought. You could always tell when the scar on his cheek—the old knife wound Rossi had ragged him about—turned that warning shade of white. Except for the scar, he was a good-looking guy in a rugged sort of way, even more so now that a touch of gray had come to the temples of his wavy dark hair. There was also an easy gentleness about the guy. Nothing prissy, or namby-pamby, but definitely a feel that you could talk to the man. Except now it wasn’t there. Now his normally soft, blue eyes were simmering.