“No kidding. Can I tell you—the first one was stuck-up. Remember that retirement party for Charlie Cribbs?”
“Yeah. She was a little off that night. Look, why don’t I just come over now, if it’s convenient? Staten Island. Right?”
“Yeah . . . but the kids are crazy—”
“I love kids.”
“Not these two. Maybe I can help you over the phone.”
“I’d rather talk in person.”
“Well . . . Joe . . . my husband, doesn’t want me getting involved again with the job.”
“You’re on extended leave, Marie. You’re not off the job. Let’s make this easy.”
“Yeah . . . okay . . . hey, didn’t you get out on three-quarter?”
“I did.”
“So, how are you back?”
I didn’t want to answer that, but I had to. I said, “I’m with the ATTF. Contract agent.”
There was a silence, then she said, “I was on the task force less than six months, and I only worked two cases. Which one are you interested in?”
“The other one.”
Again, a silence, then she said, “I’m getting the feeling you’re not on official business.”
“I’m not. The case is closed. You know that. I got your name from another guy on the job. I need to talk to you. Off the record.”
“What guy?”
“I can’t say. And I won’t say your name either. I’m at a pay phone, and I’m out of change. I need about half an hour with you.”
“My husband’s a route delivery guy. Comes home unexpectedly. He’s big and jealous.”
“That’s okay. I can explain. And if I can’t, I’ve got a gun.”
She laughed. “Okay. I could use some adult company.”
She gave me her address in Staten Island, and I said, “Thanks. I’m going to try to catch the three o’clock ferry. Meanwhile, maybe you can dig out your pad. July 1996.”
She didn’t respond to that, and said, “I’m twenty minutes from the terminal by cab. Stop and get me a package of Pampers.”
“Uh . . .”
“The package that has Elmo on it.”
“The—?”
“Custom-fit cruisers. Size four. There’s a Duane Reade on your way. See you.”
I hung up and got out of the phone booth.
Elmo?
I hailed a cab on Broadway, flashed my NYPD dupe shield, which is a lot more recognizable than Fed creds, and said to the gentleman wearing a turban, “I need to make the three o’clock Staten Island ferry. Step on it.”
The cabbie probably hadn’t seen too many American movies and replied, “Step?”
“Speed. Police.”
“Ah.”
This is a Manhattan taxi driver’s wet dream, so the guy ran a few lights on Broadway, arriving at the Whitehall ferry terminal at five to three. He refused payment, but I gave him a five anyway.
For some reason that no one in the universe could explain, the city-owned commuter ferry was now free to foot passengers. Maybe it costs a hundred dollars to get back.
The ferry was tooting its horn, and I ran through the terminal and got aboard. I snagged a ferry schedule and walked through the lower cabin. There were lots of empty seats at this hour, but I went up the stairs and stood on the forward deck. Sunshine, blue water, brilliant sky, tugboats, seagulls, skyline, salty breeze, very nice.
As a kid, I used to ride the ferry in the summer with my friends. It was five cents. We’d get to the other side, buy an ice cream, and ride back to Manhattan. Total cost, twenty-five cents; not a bad deal for a big-time adventure.
Years later, I’d take dates on the ferry at night, and we’d stare at the Statue of Liberty, all lit up, and the incredible skyline of Lower Manhattan with the Twin Towers of the new World Trade Center rising floor by floor, year by year, and the Brooklyn Bridge with its necklace of lights. It was very romantic, and a cheap date.
The city has changed since then, mostly, I think, for the better. I can’t say the same about the rest of the world.
I stared at the Statue of Liberty awhile, trying to work up some long forgotten childhood patriotism.
Well, maybe not forgotten, but certainly not fully awake at the moment, as I realized over lunch with Kate.
I turned my attention to the approaching shoreline of Staten Island, and I thought of my brief conversation with Marie Gubitosi. She could have blown me off by saying, “I don’t know anything, and what I do know I’m not telling you.”
But she didn’t say that, so she knew something, and maybe she’d share it. Or maybe she just wanted company and a pack of Pampers. Or maybe she was on the phone right now with the OPR, who’d record our conversation and take me away. In any case, I’d know soon enough.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I got off the ferry at the St. George terminal, walked to the taxi stand, and gave the driver the address in the New Springville section.
I don’t know this outer borough very well, but when I was a young rookie, cops who screwed up were routinely threatened with being exiled to Staten Island. I used to have nightmares of me walking a beat through woods and mosquito swamps, twirling my nightstick and whistling in the dark.
But like most places whose mere mention makes your blood run cold, like Siberia, Death Valley, or New Jersey, this place didn’t live up to its scary reputation.
In fact, this borough of New York City is an okay place, a mixture of urban, suburban, and rural, mostly middle-class with a Republican majority, which made the free ferry ride all the more unexplainable.
It was also home to many city cops who may have been sent here originally as punishment, and who liked it and stayed—sort of like how Australia was settled.
In any case, this was also home to Marie Gubitosi Lentini, former Anti-Terrorist Task Force detective, and currently a wife and mother, who was now thinking about my visit, and who I hoped had found her detective pad for the time period in question. I never knew a detective who threw away their old notepads, myself included, but sometimes they got lost or misplaced. I hoped that Marie at least had a good memory. I hoped, too, that she remembered where her loyalties should lie.
The cabbie was a gent named Slobadan Milkovic—probably a Balkan war criminal—and he was reading a map instead of looking at the road. I said to him, “There’s a Duane Reade on the way. Capisce? Drugstore. Pharmacy. I need to stop.”
He nodded and accelerated as if this was an urgent mission.
We continued on down Victory Boulevard, and Mr. Milkovic two-wheeled it into a strip mall to the Duane Reade.
I’m not going to get into the utter humiliation of John Corey buying diapers with Elmo’s face on the package, but it wasn’t one of my better retail experiences.
Within ten minutes, I was back in the taxi, and ten minutes later, I was in front of the Lentini residence.
The street was fairly new with rows of semidetached red-brick homes trimmed with white vinyl, and the street stretched as far as the eye could see, like an infinity mirror. Dogs barked behind chain-link fences, and kids played on the sidewalks. My Manhattan snobbery aside, it was a very homey, comfy neighborhood, and if I lived here, I’d put my gun to my head.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d be here, or if there was another cab on Staten Island, so I told the cabbie to keep the meter running, got out and opened a chain-link gate, walked up the short concrete path, and rang the doorbell.
No dogs barked inside, and no kids screamed, which made me happy. A few seconds later, Marie Gubitosi opened the front door, wearing black slacks and a red sleeveless top. I opened the screen door, and we exchanged greetings. She said, “Thanks for remembering the diapers. Come on in.”
I followed her into an air-conditioned living room, which looked like a place where Carmela Soprano would feel comfortable, and into the kitchen. Marie actually did have a nice butt. Fanelli has a good memory for important details.
As neat as the living room was, the kitchen was total chaos. A play
pen sat in the corner where some kid of indeterminate age was stretched out, sucking on a bottle while playing with his or her toes. I still do this, and maybe this is where it comes from.
The table, counters, and floor were strewn with a jumble of things that my mind couldn’t catalogue. It looked like the scene of a robbery and double homicide where the victims fought back hard.
Marie said, “Have a seat. I made coffee.”
“Thanks.” I sat at a small kitchen table, and I put the plastic bag with the Pampers on the table. Next to me was a highchair whose tray looked goopy.
She said, “Sorry. This place is a mess.”
“Nice place.”
She poured two mugs of coffee. “I try to clean up before his majesty comes home. Cream? Sugar?”
“Black.”
She carried the two mugs to the table, and I noticed for the first time that she was literally barefoot and pregnant.
She sat across from me and raised her mug. We clinked, and I said, “You look good.”
“Was that disability for blindness?”
I smiled. “No. I mean it.”
“Thanks.”
She peeked inside the plastic bag, and I said, “Elmo.”
She smiled. “Can I pay you for those?”
“No.” I sipped my coffee. Marie Gubitosi was in fact still an attractive woman, and I guessed that she’d spruced up before I arrived. I smelled a little eau de something over the smells of baby powder and warm milk.
She nodded toward the playpen and said, “That’s Joe Junior. He’s eleven months. Melissa, two and a half, is sleeping, thank God, and I have one in the oven.”
I remembered to ask, “When are you due?”
“Sixteen weeks and three days.”
“Congratulations.”
“Yeah. I’m never going to get back to the job.”
She needed to figure out what was causing these pregnancies, but I said, “It’ll be sooner than you think.”
“Yeah. So, you look good. Gained a little weight, maybe. And you’re divorced and married again. I didn’t hear about that. I don’t hear anything anymore. Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Kate Mayfield. FBI on the task force.”
“I’m not sure I know her.”
“She got there right before TWA 800. She worked the case.”
Marie didn’t respond to the mention of TWA 800 and said, “So, you married an FBI lady. Jeez, John, first a criminal defense lawyer, then an FBI agent. What’s with you?”
“I like to fuck lawyers.”
She laughed so hard she almost choked on her coffee.
We made small talk for a while, and it was actually quite pleasant, catching up on gossip and remembering some funny incidents. She said, “Remember that time you and Dom went to that town house down in Gramercy Park where the wife shot her husband, and she’s saying he pulled the gun on her, they struggled, and it went off? Then Dom goes up to the bedroom where the corpse is getting stiff and comes back and shouts, ‘He’s alive! Call an ambulance!’ then he looks at the wife, and says, ‘He says you pulled the gun on him and shot him in cold blood!’ and the wife faints.”
We both got a laugh out of that, and I was getting nostalgic for the old days.
Marie refilled our coffees, then looked at me and asked, “So, how can I help you?”
I looked at her, and my gut instinct said she had not and would not call the Internal Affairs people.
I put down my coffee and said, “Here’s the deal. Yesterday, I went out to the memorial service for the victims of Flight 800, and—”
“Yeah. I saw that on the news. Didn’t see you. Can you believe it’s five years already?”
“Time flies. So, after the service, this guy from the task force—a Fed—comes up to me and starts asking me questions about why I’m there.”
I went through the rap, leaving Kate’s name out of it, but Marie, who was a smart detective, asked me, “What were you doing there?”
“As I said, Kate worked the case, and she goes almost every year. I was just being a good husband.”
Marie looked at me as though she wasn’t totally buying this. I had the feeling she was enjoying the little mental jolt, playing detective instead of playing with rubber duckies. She said, “So, you’re working for the ATTF?”
“Yeah. Contract agent.”
“You said this was not official business. So why are you here?”
“Well, I’m getting to that.” I continued, “So, this bozo somehow got the idea that I was interested in the case, and he tells me to back off. I mean, this guy pissed me off, so—”
“Who’s the guy?”
“Can’t say.”
“Okay, so because some Fed chewed on your ass, you got pissed and . . . what?”
“And got nosy.”
“Are things slow at the ATTF?”
“Actually, they are. Look, Marie, there’s more to this, but the less you know, the better. I just need to know what you know, and I don’t even know what questions to ask you.”
She stayed silent awhile, then said, “Don’t get pissed, but how do I know you’re not with Internal Affairs?”
“Would you ever take me to be an Internal Affairs guy?”
“Not when I knew you. But you married two lawyers since then.”
I smiled, then said, “I’m trusting that you’re not going to report this. So trust me.”
She stayed silent a moment, then said, “Okay. I worked this case for two months. I mostly worked the marinas asking people about strange boats and strange people around the marinas. You know? The theory was that some terrorist or some nut job took a boat out and fired a rocket at that plane. So I spent the summer at public marinas and private yacht clubs. Christ, do you know how many marinas and boats are out there? But it wasn’t a bad gig. I did a little fishing on my days off . . .” She paused a moment, then continued, “But no crabbing . . . nobody wanted to eat the crabs because . . . you know.”
Marie stayed quiet awhile, and I could tell that despite her breezy manner, she wasn’t enjoying thinking about this again.
I asked her, “Who’d you work with?”
“I’m not giving up any names, John. I’ll talk to you, but no names.”
“Fair enough. Talk to me.”
“You need to ask me a leading question.”
“Bayview Hotel.”
“Yeah . . . I kinda figured. So I looked through my pad to refresh my memory, but there wasn’t too much there. I mean, we were told by the Feds to keep the note taking to a minimum because we’d never be asked to testify about any of this.” She explained, “What they were saying was this was their case, and we were just along to help out.”
I nodded and added, “They were also saying they didn’t want too much in writing.”
She shrugged. “Whatever. These guys play a different game.”
“That they do.” I asked, “So, you were at the Bayview Hotel?”
“Yeah. Two days after the crash, I got a call to go to the Bayview Hotel. The FBI is interviewing staff there about something, and they need some manpower to identify who might know something about what they’re interested in. So I get there and join three other NYPD task force cops, and the three Feds that are already there, they brief us and say—”
Junior started screaming about something, and Marie stood and went over to the playpen. She cooed, “What’s the matter with my sweetie?” and pushed the bottle back in his mouth.
Junior started screaming louder, and Marie picked him up and said, “Oh, poor baby did a poopie.”
Is that a reason to scream? I mean, if I crapped my pants, I’d be real quiet about it.
Marie snagged the Pampers and took the kid somewhere for de-pooping.
I used my cell phone to check my office voice mail, but there were no calls. I called my cube mate Harry Muller on his cell phone, and he answered. I asked him, “Are you in the office?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Is anyone looking
for me?”
“No. Are you lost? I’ll send out a search party. What’s the last landmark you saw?”
Everyone’s a comedian. “Harry, has anyone asked about my whereabouts?”
“Yeah. Koenig came by about an hour ago and asked me if I knew where you were hiding. I told him you went to lunch.”
“Okay.” It was odd, I thought, that Koenig hadn’t called my cell phone if he wanted to talk to me, though maybe he just wanted to share a new joke with his favorite detective. In any case, I didn’t want to see or hear from Jack Koenig today. I asked Harry, “Is Kate around?”
“Yeah . . . I can see her at her desk. Why?”
“Do me a favor. Tell her to meet me . . .” I looked at my watch and the ferry schedule. I could make the five-thirty ferry if Joe Senior didn’t come home unexpectedly. I said to Harry, “Tell her I’ll meet her at Delmonico’s at six for a drink.”
“Why don’t you just call her?”
“Why don’t you just go tell her for me?”
“Am I allowed to go over there?”
“Yeah. Empty a few wastebaskets.”
He laughed. “Okay. Delmonico’s, six o’clock.”
“Keep that between you and her.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
Marie came back in the kitchen, dumped the kid in the playpen, and pushed a bottle in his mouth. She wound up a hanging mobile of smiling faces, which revolved and played “It’s a Small World.” I hate that song.
She freshened our coffees and sat down.
I said, “He’s really a cute kid.”
“You want him?”
I smiled, then said, “So, you got briefed.”
“Yeah. This FBI guy gets the four of us together in the hotel manager’s office, and the FBI guy says that we’re looking for two people who could be witnesses to the crash and who may have stayed at this hotel—the Bayview. And how do we know this? Because a blanket, maybe from this hotel, was found by the local cops on some beach where the accident could be seen. The beach blanket came to the attention of the FBI early that morning, and they got the idea to check out local hotels and motels to see if that’s where the blanket came from. They’ve narrowed it down to the Bayview. Follow?”