The Guardians Read online

  “Damn,” Knight repeated. She quickly double-checked the dates she’d scribbled on a yellow pad, and then stared at her boss.

  “What?” Tolchinsky stood.

  “I-We’ve got it,” Knight replied, wisely.

  ***

  Fat Philly was relegated to page seven of the Post, bounced from the front page when an oil truck flipped and burned on the George Washington Bridge.

  “This guy’s a moron,” said August, tapping the paper.

  Lucy Addison had put up coffee and sliced a pound cake her son brought.

  W.E. wore a bathrobe over his pajamas. His stepson, in brown slacks and sienna turtleneck, sat in his mother’s seat at the table in a sunny kitchen that could barely accommodate two.

  Steele leaned against the refrigerator. “He said…?”

  “He told me not to worry,” August replied.

  “About…?”

  August shrugged. “I shook his hand and told him it was a terrible thing. He said ‘Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine.’”

  “Think he made you?” W.E. asked.

  “You forget I’m half Sicilian,” August said. “We spoke Italian.”

  Luther Addison managed a smile. The three old men came up through NYPD when black men comprised about two percent of the force. They knew how to use what little they had.

  “As for you, Luther,” August said, “you run about the worse sit I’ve ever seen.” He reached for another slice of the pound cake. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn up in some TV footage. Circling, circling…”

  “‘It’s gonna be fine,’” Hammer Steele repeated. “Meaning it falls on Luther?”

  “Oh yeah. Especially since Joey Dalrymple showed up.”

  Steele looked down at Luther. “Your partner.”

  “And Andy Hill’s running buddy since the Academy,” August added.

  “Andy Hill.” The dark-skinned Steele grimaced his distaste.

  W.E. watched his friends. Marrying Hill and Dalrymple told him they were building to something.

  “Somebody says Hill’s got history with Little Flaps,” August said.

  “Who?” W.E. asked, his voice frail.

  “Hammer.”

  The Addison men turned to Henry Steele.

  “The Genoveses say,” said Steele, who tapped an old source. “Little Flaps Ciccanti ripped off Hill.”

  Luther let out a little cough. He said, “August 19, 1978. Aqueduct. Fat Philly’s crew, including Flaps, took down fourteen hundred dollars from a sixty-nine-year-old man who hit the trifecta for the first time in his life. Same afternoon Andy Hill claimed someone stole his wife’s mink out of the trunk of his car, which she parked at… Aqueduct.”

  “No coincidence,” said August, who couldn’t decide if he found Addison ’s thoroughness annoying or amusing.

  W.E. said, “If the UPS facility in Howard Beach gets ripped off, the Feds will think the Gambinos backed it.” He shook his head. “Fat Philly went to the Genoveses for protection?”

  Steele nodded.

  August said, “What a mook.”

  Steele turned to young Addison. “Stand down,” he said. “This thing plays out. Fat Philly will flip any way he has to.”

  Addison hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” his stepfather whispered.

  Leaning over his coffee cup, Luther Addison told them what else Knight delivered and how tests City College ran cleared him. “I think we can do this by the book,” he added

  “Whose book?” August asked.

  ***

  Rosemary Barone worked as a secretary at Christ Hospital, a sprawling brick complex across the Hudson in downtown Jersey City. Addison was told he’d find her sooner or later in sunlight, smoking two Newports at a time and cursing ex-husbands. Imagine a rusty nail come to life, Addison was advised. That’s Rosemary Flanagan Hill Barone.

  “Yeah, and?” she said when Addison identified himself. He wore a gray turtleneck under a forest green corduroy jacket with gray elbow patches.

  He went gentle. Jersey City had a huge African American population and he was betting she didn’t much like that: All the other smokers around her were white too. The black smokers were gathered at the curb maybe thirty feet away.

  “I was wondering if I might have a word…”

  “‘Have a word’? One? What kind?”

  The white smokers tittered, their condescension sprinkled with uncertainty and quavering defiance.

  He said, “It’s about your husband Andy.”

  “Tell me he’s dead,” she said, scowling under a blond bouffant some twenty years out of date.

  “No, he’s not-”

  “Not? Wrong word.”

  “It’s about your mink coat,” Addison continued. “The one that was stolen at Aqueduct.”

  She let loose an ugly rattle Addison took for her laugh. “You think I look like I ever had a mink stole?”

  “Andy said you did. He said you left in it your trunk-”

  “I left a mink stole in the trunk of my car at the racetrack? Me?” She spit. “How much did he get for it?”

  “The stole you never had?”

  “From insurance, wise guy.”

  Addison replied, and then she started spewing.

  Twenty-five minutes later, her supervisor came looking for her.

  “Call me,” she told Addison, as she followed the hardy black woman back inside. “I’m just getting started on that miserable pimple.”

  ***

  Addison shot up in bed, certain the ringing phone meant his stepfather had passed. But someone had gotten his unlisted number, which he’d given only to his family, the Guardians, a couple of college buddies, and NYPD. Racial epithets mixed with profanity told him where the caller got it.

  Wrapped in a robe, he went to his chair in the living room and listened to the traffic below on Columbus Avenue, trying to quell his anger. One o’clock and he knew he wasn’t going back to sleep. He checked on the baby, looked over the notes he made after talking to Hill’s ex, and then replayed the conversation he’d had with the old cops-the taciturn Steele, the jovial but vaguely dangerous August, and his stepfather, the reasoned, reliable W.E.

  The original Guardians, he thought, as he started looking at it through their eyes.

  No sense telling IAD or his CO what he’d learned about Hill.

  Two hours later, he was knocking on Joe Dalrymple’s apartment door.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Dalrymple said. Rousted from bed, he was wearing boxer shorts and a Yankees T-shirt.

  Addison encouraged his partner to step onto his fourteenth floor balcony, which overlooked downtown Forest Hills.

  “Cut your losses while you can, Joe.”

  Dalrymple didn’t know Addison had a temper. “I don’t-”

  Addison held up his hand.

  “What?” Dalrymple said. “What do you think you know?”

  “I know Andy Hill worked a deal with Fat Philly and held a grudge against Ciccanti.”

  “Oh. You know?” he sneered.

  “Little Flaps jacked him in the Aqueduct lot, and he gave up eight hundred dollars.”

  “Never. Andy wouldn’t give up a dime, especially if he was carrying.”

  Addison said, “Easier to get Fat Philly to return the eight hundred and then double dip through insurance.”

  “You don’t-”

  “And Hill lets Fat Philly stay in business as long as he kicks back.”

  Dalrymple frowned.

  “We’ve seen his jacket, Joe. IAD looked at him. The insurance company called on the mink claim. He didn’t tell you?”

  Dalrymple hesitated. “Take it up with Andy,” he said finally.

  “Hill is tight with the Gambinos, and Fat Philly going to the Genoveses puts him in the middle. Maybe you too.”

  That was out-of-the air conjecture, but both cops knew Hill was dirty. Killing Fat Philly’s Little Flaps told the Gambinos Hill was still their boy; at the same time, it kept Fat Philly’s busin
ess in Hill’s pocket.

  As for setting up a fellow member of NYPD…

  “Black man bothers you so much, Joe, you want to take his career?”

  “Get lost.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? Hate owns your soul, Joe.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Dalrymple said. “Black this, black that, and I’m riding with you. You’re a pain in the tail, Luther, and you don’t get it. There’s no room for you. None.”

  “In what? No room for me in what?”

  Shivering in the late-night air, Dalrymple said, “Nobody’s going to stand by and let it happen. NYPD ain’t going equal opportunity, Luther. Your father knew to shut up, but you…” He stopped. “Hell, Luther, you know this.”

  “So I’m a killer, Joe? I killed that kid?”

  “It is what it is-”

  “Hill knows I’m riding with you,” Addison said. “He remembers all the times you told him what I said. He figures two birds: He gets Ciccanti and you get rid of your partner-”

  Suddenly, Addison ’s heart crashed, his stomach jolted, and he understood it as clear as if his stepfather had told him what had happened.

  He grabbed Dalrymple and rushed him to the balcony’s edge, bending him back over the rail.

  “Luther!”

  “Hill pulled the throw down to shoot me, didn’t he?”

  “Luther, wait-” Dalrymple was halfway into the night, dangling a few hundred feet above the concrete, parked cars, and prickly bushes below.

  “I go down, you take out Ciccanti and the Cobra throw down winds up in his hand.”

  “For God’s sake, Luther-”

  “To kill off the Guardians,” Addison barked. “To keep it-Say it’s so.”

  “Luther, Jesus-”

  “Say it!”

  “Luther,” he screamed, “Luther, yeah, all right. But I saved your life, Luther. Andy set you up. You and Ciccanti. Two dead, but when I heard, Luther-”

  Addison spun his partner and tossed him to the balcony floor.

  “Luther, listen. I told him, we can’t shoot a cop. I told-I mean, I didn’t want you dead.” He scrambled to his feet. “I wanted you gone. Shut up, gone, not dead. You’re ruining this good thing, you and your other nig-”

  Addison stepped hard and slapped Dalrymple across the face. Panting, he stared as his partner crashed into the sliding-glass window and tumbled back into the apartment, pulling a curtain off its rods.

  “That story about Hill and Little Flaps at the track back in ‘78 is in the morning’s Times,” Addison said. “So you have a choice. You call IAD now and make good. Or you take a few steps back and get a running start on a dive off this balcony.”

  Dalrymple stared up at Addison, who glowered, spittle flying with each word, chest heaving.

  As Dalrymple crawled backward toward his bed, Addison said, “Pick up the phone, Joe. Pick it up before I think better of it and toss you off the balcony myself.”

  ***

  Steele and August couldn’t decide, so they both went, and they found Fat Philly solo in a booth in a diner on Cross Bay Boulevard.

  Little Flaps Ciccanti’s funeral mass at Saint Helen’s was due to begin in two hours.

  “What?”

  Steele and August knew how to walk it so no badge was required. They eased in across from Fat Philly, his three eggs over easy and home fries in marinara sauce.

  Luther told them Flaps was carrying an Instamatic, so they knew the kid went in for more than he could carry in a duffel bag.

  “The Gambinos can’t decide whether to pull off your head first or just stick it up your butt while it’s still on your shoulders,” August said.

  “As for the Genovese family…” Steele had learned it was often better to let a worm’s imagination complete his sentences.

  “Andy Hill is talking,” August said. It wasn’t true-W.E.’s kid said it was Dalrymple who rolled over-but a plausible lie well told was at least as good as fact. “You want the Genoveses to back your move on the Gambinos’ turf, and they’re supposed to do it for a couple hundred Gs’ worth of mink stoles?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fat Philly scoffed as he pushed a butter-laden piece of toast into a yolk. “Flaps was on his own, looking for baseball cards or something. Who don’t know that?”

  “Flaps cases the plant and he can keep anything he can carry,” Steele said. “You and the crew go back a couple days later when everyone relaxes. At least that’s what you told the Genoveses: UPS is moving stoles-sable, lynx, and upper-end mink from Russia and Finland.”

  “You got nothing,” Fat Philly said unconvincingly. “Mink stoles, Russia…”

  “You believe they won’t hit you in church,” Steele asked.

  “Who?” Fat Philly said.

  “That is the question, isn’t it?” Steele.

  “No, I mean who is-”

  August said, “Both. They’ll kill you twice.”

  “Or three times,” Steele added. “Once the Ciccantis find out you tipped Hill that Little Flaps was alone.”

  “Whoa. You’re saying I set up Flaps-”

  August said, “You set up Flaps. Yeah.”

  Fat Philly slammed his palm on the table, sending coffee over the cup’s side. “I knew it. I knew it,” he said. “This is our thing, not your thing. Our th-”

  Without breaking eye contact, August drove a fork an inch into the back of Fat Philly’s hand.

  ***

  Handcuffed and perp-walked, Andy Hill’s photo was on the front page of the News. The Post had turned its attention to a meeting between Reagan and the pope.

  Addison drove out to Cambria Heights, retrieved his stepfather, and brought him all but roundtrip. He had considered taking him late to a jazz club, the Vanguard, maybe, or Sweet Basil’s, but they were both tired of being the only black men in the room minus the musicians on the bandstand. He wanted their time together to be nothing but contentment. So back to Smokey’s.

  Over fall-off-the-bone ribs, W.E. Addison said, “Luther, it’s time for me to say good-bye to my grandson.”

  Addison tapped his stepfather’s hand. “I know, Pop. Next stop.” Once again, he tried to make it light. “First we’ve got to wipe that barbecue sauce off your face.”

  The old man looked at his stepson, who he couldn’t have loved more had he been his own blood. His tired old heart still swelled from the pride of knowing he could do right by him one last time.

  They sat quiet, surrounded by the chatter of students and suits on hand for an early lunch. W.E. sipped tart lemonade from tall Styrofoam.

  “Got what you need, Pop?” He hadn’t told him about Hill’s murderous plan. Steele might’ve figured it, since he told him to stand down, but there was no reason for W.E. to know there were cops who wanted his stepson dead.

  But W.E. knew, of course he did. Same as it ever was.

  “It’s a good thing, son. The Guardians. If a man like you is at the top.”

  Luther tilted his head. He’d begun to think otherwise-Dalrymple told him his advocacy put a wall between the two of them when they should’ve worked to be as close as any two partners; and Sarah Tolchinsky, white and a devout Jew, chaperoned his cause through the D.A.’s office. Sharon Knight said Tolchinsky was the one who made the call to the mayor’s office to set him straight.

  Hell, even Steele’s snitch was white.

  “Pop,” Addison sighed, “I’m thinking I’ve got to look deep before I decide.”

  “You get yourself good people like Hammer and Cookie and you’ll be all right.”

  As Luther Addison nodded, W.E. ran a paper napkin across his lips, hiding from his stepson a smile of everlasting satisfaction.

  Jim Fusilli

  Jim Fusilli is the author of five novels including HARD, HARD CITY, which was named Best Novel of 2004 by Mystery Ink magazine. In 2008, his first novel for young adults, MARLEY Z AND THE BLOODSTAINED VIOLIN, was published by Dutton.

  He was editor of, and contributed a c
hapter to, THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT, Audible’s best-selling “serial thriller,” which was named Audiobook of the Year by the Audio Publishers Association. He edited and contributed a chapter to its sequel, THE COPPER BRACELET.

  His short story, CHELLINI'S SOLUTION, appeared in the 2007 edition of THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES, and his story THE GUARDIAN was selected for A PRISONER OF MEMORY, a 2008 anthology of the year’s finest mystery short fiction. In 2009, his short fiction appeared in the anthology BOSTON NOIR and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

  Jim also is the rock and pop critic of The Wall Street Journal. PET SOUNDS, his book on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' album “Pet Sounds,” was published in 2006 by Continuum and in 2009 by Audible.

  In 2005, he served as Visiting Professor, Creative Writing, at the State University of New York, Binghamton.

  He and his wife Diane live in Tribeca in New York City.

  ***

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