Authors: Joseph Badal
The melee outside the bank deteriorated into mass hysteria. People screamed and shouted, pushed, and ran like stampeded cattle. Gino calmly pulled Bishop’s valise from his hand and walked away. He looked for Paulie and saw his car was blocked by the jam of vehicles backed up because of the accident at the end of the block. He walked down the block and turned the corner. Out of sight of the bank’s security cameras, he stepped into an alley, took off his hat, and dropped it into a trash bin. He used a handkerchief to wipe down the Beretta and dumped it in the bin, too.
After he walked away from the alley, Gino called Paulie on his cellphone. “I’ll meet you on 42nd Street, around the corner from 5
th
Avenue.”
“We going home?”
“Back to the hospital,” Gino said. “We just went out for a walk.”
At Gold’s place out on Long Island, O’Neil and Peter raptly watched the Action News helicopter coverage of the aftereffects of a shooting that had occurred outside the Manhattan Merchants Bank. The telephone rang. Peter answered it, and was relieved to hear David’s voice.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m in an ambulance with Jennifer. Bishop shot her.”
CHAPTER 56
It took three hours of surgery to remove the bullet from Jennifer’s chest. The round had just missed her aorta, but had collapsed a lung. When she awoke in recovery, still groggy from anesthesia, she saw a hazy image in front of her. It took a minute for her vision to clear enough to recognize David seated at the foot of her bed.
“I know I’m not in heaven,” she rasped. “You’re here.”
“Ha-ha,” David said. “Glad you still have a sense of humor.”
“What happened?” Jennifer asked.
“Bishop shot you. Someone shot Bishop. Killed him.”
“Who?”
“No one knows. TV news says witnesses claim it was either a man or a woman, somewhere between five feet and six feet tall, weighing between one-fifty and two-fifty.”
Jennifer saw nothing but a blank expression on David’s face. Then, for a beat, she noticed a glint in his eyes and knew in that instant that David knew who had killed Bishop.
Paulie returned Gino to St. Joseph’s Hospital by 11 a.m. He went into the hospital and stole a gown and slippers. Gino changed clothes in the back seat of his car and then leaned on Paulie as he returned to his room.
“Where have you been, Mr. Bartolucci?” a nurse demanded.
“Outside getting some air. Did you miss me?”
The nurse glared at Gino. “Did you unplug yourself from the IV?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t drag the damn thing around with me.”
“You need to get back into bed. It’s almost time for lunch. I’ll come in a second and hook you up.”
Gino rubbed his hands together. “Oh good,” he said. “I can’t wait.”
MAY 1-JUNE 10
CHAPTER 57
The next morning, Paulie Rizzo drove Gino home to his wife in South Philadelphia. Gino had been so focused on his quest for revenge that he’d ignored her since Carmela’s death. Now they would mourn the loss of their daughter and grandchildren together.
Dennis O’Neil caught a flight from New York to Chicago. He drove directly to his office, went to his desk, and typed a letter of resignation. He walked into the Chief of Detectives’ office and laid the letter, his department-issued sidearm, and his badge on the man’s desk. Then he cleaned out his own desk and made a list of the things he had to do before he moved to Bethesda, Maryland. The job David Hood had offered him with Security Systems, Ltd. was just too good to pass up. He took a cab to his house in Brookfield, greeted only by a small antique clock striking 6 p.m. That night. he slept like a baby.
Peter spent a couple days in New York, spelling David at the hospital where he watched over Jennifer Ramsey. But he soon felt like he was intruding and informed his son he would return to Philadelphia.
Jennifer was in the hospital for eight days before the doctors were satisfied infection was no longer a big concern. David visited her every day, although his visits were frequently interrupted by representatives of the NYPD, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Everyone wanted to know who had killed Rolf Bishop. David’s standard reply was, “I would love to have killed the bastard if I’d had the chance. But someone beat me to it. I heard the shots, but because of the crowd of people between Bishop and me, I couldn’t see a thing. After Bishop shot Detective Ramsey I gave her first aid. I didn’t have time to notice anything else.”
David explained how he received information from a Swiss banker about Bishop’s New York bank.
“Who else came to the bank with you?” an FBI agent asked.
“Just Detective Ramsey. She thought I was on a wild goose chase, but wanted to ride along for the hell of it.”
A New York City investigator asked, “Mr. Hood, were you armed?”
“Of course not,” David lied. “That would be a violation of New York City law.”
Day after day, the various investigators questioned David, but couldn’t uncover a thing that helped them in their investigation. They finally departed with promises to be back in touch. David wasn’t worried.
After the hospital released Jennifer, David returned Irving Gold’s SUV to his Long Island home and rented a car. He drove Jennifer to his father’s house in Philadelphia where he and Peter helped nurse her back to health over the next few weeks.
Despite hundreds of man-hours put in by the police and the Feds, not one witness to Bishop’s murder could give a clear description of the shooter or a coherent account of what had happened. One witness swore she’d seen a man wearing a hat and a suit stand over the dead man and appeared to talk to him. But she couldn’t give a good description of that man.
The only pieces of hard evidence the authorities had were the bullets in Bishop’s body, Bishop’s pistol found on the sidewalk next to his body, and the bullet in the female cop’s chest.
The investigators interviewed several bank employees. Some remembered seeing David Hood. A couple saw Hood and several other men walk down to the safety deposit vault. A couple others thought they saw Hood and another man leave the bank through the 5
th
Avenue exit. But no one could identify the other man. The investigators thought they caught a break when they learned Hood and a second man had been locked in the safety deposit vault. But when they tried to interview the woman who managed the vault, she became hysterical and had to be hospitalized. The bank’s security cameras clearly showed David Hood enter the bank alone. The second man came in later. But none of the lobby cameras provided a good picture of his face. Hood claimed he didn’t know the identity of that man and never got a good look at his face. There were no cameras in the safety deposit area.
David never mentioned to anyone the two million dollar reward that would come to him from Switzerland. He also never mentioned the bag Gino took from Bishop’s dead hand and later gave to him.
David and Peter became closer than ever as they worked together to nurse Jennifer. David found it ironic that something good could come from the evil perpetrated by Bishop. David asked Peter to come live with him in Bethesda. Peter thought for a day about David’s proposal. “Only if I can return to Philadelphia if I ever feel like I’m in the way,” he said. “Let’s give it six months. After that, if we’re still talking to one another, I’ll sell the place in Philly.”
After Jennifer had recovered enough from her wound to return to Maryland, David drove her and his father to Bethesda. After he dropped Jennifer off at her apartment, David and Peter stopped at the cemetery where Carmela, Heather, and Kyle were buried. David cried as he never had allowed himself before.
The two million dollar reward paid from Bishop’s Swiss bank and the ten million from the sale of the bearer bonds in Bishop’s leather bag all went into a trust for the widows and children of Bishop’s victims.
PART III
NOVEMBER 24
CHAPTER 1
“Can you believe that lucky bastard in the White House survived the Bishop fiasco?” the Senator from Kentucky said under his breath. “And they called Reagan the Teflon President!”
The Senator from South Dakota laughed and hoisted his glass in the air. “To the President,” he toasted. “May he outlive his enemies and survive despite his friends.”
“I’ll drink to that,” the Kentuckian said. He drank a half-inch of scotch and placed the glass down on the white tablecloth. He leaned forward and whispered, “Anything new from the Senate Intelligence Committee?”
“Shit!” the South Dakotan cursed. “That bastard Bishop made Saddam Hussein look like a rank amateur.”
“I’ve seen the briefs. Some hero!”
The Senator from South Dakota scrunched up his eyes. “Have you heard anything about whether that fellow Hood will bring a lawsuit against the government? After all, Bishop had already been nominated to the CIA position when he had Hood’s family murdered.”
“From what I’ve heard, that’s not Hood’s style. Actually, I expected his father-in-law, Bartolucci, to sue the city of Philadelphia, but apparently he didn’t want city lawyers to look into his past activities any more than they already had.”
“I guess not.”
“One thing did come out of the investigation that was kind of interesting,” the Senator from Kentucky said. “The Intelligence Committee interviewed all of Bishop’s assistants, clerks, you know, all his support people. One guy mentioned a call that came to Bishop’s office a couple days before Bishop got shot. Some cop from Bethesda: Cromby . . . Cromwell. That’s it. Cromwell called and said he had information about Hood. He put the call through to Bishop, but didn’t know what the guy told Bishop. Turns out the cop may have given Bishop information about where to find Hood in Philadelphia.”
“What an asshole! Anything happen to the cop? Should have been fired, at least.”
“Yeah! His boss tried to fire him, but the union intervened. The District Attorney down there started an investigation, but now that’s irrelevant. Somebody whacked the guy. Put a bullet in his brain.”
NEXT YEAR
JULY 16
CHAPTER 2
Jennifer Ramsey knew David’s wife and kids had loved Cape May, New Jersey. How could she not know it? David mentioned it often enough. The beautiful Victorian village off the tip of New Jersey catered to families, bird watchers, and history buffs, he’d told her more than once. Jennifer didn’t care if she ever saw the place. Every time David brought up the subject, she felt as though someone twisted a dagger in her gut.
She and David would take in a show every once in a while; maybe have dinner once or twice a month. Jennifer felt as though they connected on those “dates.” But then the damned weekend would come around and he’d retreat deeper within himself. She tried to get him to spend weekends with her—in D.C., Williamsburg, Alexandria, Rehoboth. Anywhere but Cape May. To no avail. And every time he visited Cape May, he became melancholy. He’d return to Bethesda more depressed, more withdrawn. His visits there rekindled the anger and depression he couldn’t seem to get past. Instead of healing the hole in his heart, the memories the visits generated seemed to tear him apart.
Jennifer had never been more frustrated. There was no one she could talk with about it, so she bought a diary. A red, leather-bound volume that became her sounding board. And every time she pulled it from the nightstand, self-contempt wrapped a cloying cloak around her. What kind of life do you lead? she asked herself over and over. You’re in love with a man who doesn’t know how you feel and couldn’t care less about you, and now you talk to a goddamn book. It was another Thursday night. Another sleepless night. He’ll leave Bethesda after work tomorrow and drive down to Delaware. Take the ferry from Lewes, Delaware over to Cape May. She read what she’d written the past Monday:
We’ve become friends over the past twelve months, but the friendship has cost me in ways he’ll never understand. David seems oblivious to how I feel about him. I’m tormented with the desire to put my arms around him, to make his demons disappear. But all I am to him is a wall against which he tosses his pain and sorrow.
I don’t know if it’s accurate to say my soul is hurting. Can souls feel pain? And now David appears to have spiraled even further downward, into a state of depression that frightens me beyond any fear I’ve ever known. I’ve held off saying the words, but the thought has been with me for months. There is no question in my mind David is suicidal. He can’t seem to get past the death of his wife and children, or to see that life could still be wonderful.
I love him with all of my being.
Jennifer slammed the diary closed and tossed it in the nightstand’s open drawer. She shut the drawer and nearly toppled the bedside lamp to the floor. “One last try,” she groaned. “I’ll give it one last try. I can’t go on like this.”
The clock radio showed 11 p.m. There was no doubt David would still be awake. She knew he rarely went to bed before midnight. She dialed his home number.
“Hello.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Peter,” Jennifer said. “Is David there?”
“Hi, Jen. Why are you up so late?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Huh,” Peter grunted. “I suspect neither of us can sleep for the same reason.”
“Is he still up?”
“Of course! God forbid he should get a good night’s sleep.”
“Can I speak with him?”
“Certainly.”
Jennifer expected David to come on the line. But a few seconds passed and then Peter said, “Think how you’d feel if you blamed yourself for the deaths of your brother, wife, and children.”
She’d heard from Peter about the murder of David’s brother, Tommy, and how David blamed himself. And she knew David had been the target of the killer who murdered Carmela, Heather, and Kyle. More blame. “I’d feel like crap, Peter.”