3
It was a confusing crime scene, because all the wise
guys who’d been at Bella Stella when Chubby Charlie got shot had
immediately fled, while others arrived for dinner afterward—and
decided to hang around on the street to annoy the
cops.
I was sitting in a
corner of the restaurant, dizzy with shock. Stella Butera, a
voluptuous woman, sat next to me, holding my hand and occasionally
patting my back.
Stella’s hair, an
improbable shade of gold, was teased and curled into a dramatic
fall of riotous waves. She wore heavy mascara, her pink fingernails
were very long, and her clothes were usually tight and always
shiny. Ever since her lover, Handsome Joey Gambello, had gotten
killed here five years ago, she’d had plenty of offers for
nocturnal companionship, but she’d reputedly remained faithful to
his memory. (In fact, she was having a quiet affair with her
accountant, but the public pretense of untouchable celibacy suited
her complicated relationship with the volatile Gambellos, several
of whom perpetually competed to take over Joey’s side of her
bed.)
“I can’t believe
Charlie was killed in front of me,” I said. “Right in front of me!”
I hadn’t liked him,
but I certainly hadn’t wanted to watch him die.
“There, there,
sweetie.” Stella patted my back.
I stared with dazed
eyes at Charlie’s corpse, which still lay on the floor. A police
photographer was taking pictures of everything, while a veritable
army of Crime Scene Unit personnel moved purposefully around the
restaurant, gathering evidence. A young patrolman with an awkward
expression on his face was watching over me, and two detectives
were standing nearby, talking into their cell phones.
“Can’t I leave now?”
I said plaintively to the patrolman.
“Just a minute,
ma’am.” He went over to speak to the detectives.
I had given my
statement to this patrolman, then to another patrolman, and then to
the two detectives. Now I just wanted to go home, pull the covers
over my head, and try to forget what I had seen.
Above all, I wanted
to get out of the restaurant and away from Charlie’s staring
corpse.
“I feel like he’s
looking at me,” I said to Stella. “I should have listened to him!
He said he was marked for
death!”
“Of course he was,
honey,” said Stella. “He was a Gambello capo. Living to a ripe old
age ain’t a standard part of their benefits package.”
The patrolman
returned to my side. “I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re going to have to
give another statement.”
“Another?” I said, fighting tears of exhaustion,
revulsion, and guilt.
Stella stepped in.
“What’s the matter with you people? Can’t you see she’s had
enough?” she bellowed.
“Er, Detective?” the
patrolman said anxiously, backing away from Stella.
One of the detectives
glanced out the restaurant window and said to the patrolman, “OCCB
just arrived. They’ve got to talk to her.”
The young patrolman
said to me, “Sorry, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me that,”
I snapped.
“Yes, ma’am. Er,
sorry . . .”
Two more cops entered
the restaurant. I jumped to my feet as soon as I recognized one of
them.
“Esther,” Lopez said, his features creased with
concern. “Jesus, I was hoping you weren’t here when it
happened.”
I went straight into
his arms and clung to him.
“You’re the witness?” he said against my
hair.
I
nodded.
“Shit.” His arms
tightened around me.
“Hey, sweetie!”
Stella said jovially. “This must be the guy, huh? The cop
everyone’s been talking about?”
I didn’t answer. I
just burrowed. Lopez felt wonderful. Strong and safe. I wanted to
stay in his arms the rest of the night.
But not in the same
room with Charlie’s dead body.
“Can we please go
outside?” I mumbled against Lopez’s jacket. “I can’t look at
Charlie anymore.”
“Sure,” he said.
“Come on.” With one arm still around me, he turned so that I
wouldn’t see Charlie again as we made our exit.
The cop who had come
in with him said, “This is our witness?”
“Yeah,” Lopez
replied. “I know her.”
“So I gathered,” was
the dry response.
“Esther, this is
Detective Peter Napoli,” Lopez said. “He’s going to be lead
investigator on this case.”
“Uh-huh,” I
said.
Lopez told Napoli,
“I’ll get her statement.”
“I’ll get it,” said Napoli.
Lopez nodded but
didn’t loosen his hold on me. I was relieved he wasn’t just going
to abandon me to Napoli. If I had to repeat again what it was like to watch Charlie Chiccante
die, I’d at least like a comforting face to look at while I did it.
And, as I glanced at Napoli, I didn’t think he looked at all
comforting. A pale, brown-eyed man who was mostly bald, he had a
sardonic, suspicious expression.
As soon as we got
outside, where it was nighttime by now, a familiar voice called,
“Esther! Are you okay,
kid?”
I looked around.
“Lucky?”
Bright lights blinked
briefly in my face. I was confused for a moment, until I realized
it was flash photography. I held a hand up to shade my eyes and
squinted. I saw two photographers in the crowd. Not cops. Media.
Taking pictures of me.
“Miss Diamond!” one
of them shouted. “Hey, over here, Esther!”
“Great, they know
your name already,” Lopez muttered.
I ducked my head,
suddenly depressed. I dreamed of being photographed as a successful
actress at the Tony Awards, not as a waitress who’d witnessed a mob
hit in Little Italy.
“Esther!” Lucky
called.
I lifted my head
again. “Lucky! Where are you?”
“Don’t, Esther,”
Lopez said. “This is a zoo. We’d better take you to—”
Another flash went
off in my face. I saw spots and stumbled. Only Lopez’s supporting
arm kept me from falling.
A hand from the
milling crowd reached for me. I flinched, but then I saw Lucky’s
face and returned his grip.
“Grazie a Dio!” Lucky tore me out of Lopez’s grasp
to hug me. “Thank God you’re all right, kid! They wouldn’t let me
inside, and no one knew for sure if you was okay!”
I hugged him back and
babbled, “Chubby Charlie’s dead! He was shot right in front of me!
I thought he was having some kind of stroke or psychotic fit, but
then . . . Oh, Lucky!”
Napoli snapped at
Lopez, “Can’t you keep your witness quiet?”
Lopez said,
“Esther—”
“Hey, buddy, back
off!” Lucky warned him, sweeping me to his side and stepping
between us. “Her boyfriend’s a cop.”
“I’m a cop,” Lopez said, trying to retrieve me. “And
I’m her . . . I mean . . .”
Our eyes
met.
I said, “I thought
I’d have a chance to explain to you, before you heard about it from
someone else, that, um, I’ve been telling the guys around
here—”
“Lucky, relax!” said
Stella, who’d followed us outside. “This is Esther’s boyfriend.”
“Oh? Oh. Hey!” Lucky turned friendly. “You’re the
boyfriend?”
Napoli said to Lopez,
“Whoa! The witness is your girlfriend?”
Lopez looked at me,
as if thinking I might know the right answer to this
question.
I said, “It may seem
as if things between us moved forward without you actually
being here, but I—”
“Well, okay, then, pal! Glad to meet you!” Lucky grabbed
Lopez’s hand and pumped it in greeting. “Any friend of Esther’s is
a friend of mine!”
Lopez said to me,
“You’re friends with Lucky
Battistuzzi?”
“Hey, you know me?”
Lucky sounded pleased.
“Only by
reputation.”
Napoli said, “Good
God, you’re dating a mob girl?”
“No,” Lopez said.
“Wait a minute!”
Lucky bristled. “Are you sayin’ you’re breaking up with Esther, you
bozo? Now? Tonight? After the poor kid
just saw Chubby Charlie get whacked? What kind of a man are
you?”
“I’m not breaking up
with her,” Lopez said, starting to look like his head
hurt.
“No? Well. Okay,
then.” Restored to good humor by this news, Lucky gestured to a few
of the wiseguys in the crowd. “Hey! Guys! Esther’s boyfriend just
got back to town! Come say hello! Tommy! Freddie! This is Esther’s
fella.”
Tommy Two Toes said,
“Yo!”
Freddie the Hermit
said, “Hey!”
Lopez said to me, “I
can see that you and I have a lot to talk about.”
“I can explain this,”
I assured him.
“So you are dating a Gambello girl?” Napoli said
coldly.
Lopez said, “Esther,
I doubt anyone can explain
this.”
Jimmy “Legs”
Brabancaccio came over and extended a beefy hand to Lopez. “So
you’re the guy who stole our Esther’s heart, huh?”
“ ‘Our’ Esther?”
Lopez repeated darkly.
“Your girl’s got a
great voice,” Jimmy Legs said. “Golden pipes. She’s gonna be a big
star someday. Her name in lights on the Great White
Way.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey, Ronnie! Come
over here and say hello to Esther’s fiancé,” Jimmy
urged.
“We’re getting
married?” Lopez said.
“I never said
that,” I told him. “I
swear.”
Ronnie Romano folded
his arms and shook his head. “I ain’t makin’ the acquaintance of no
cop. Not unless what he’s got a warrant for my arrest and I can’t
in no ways avoid the association.”
“Aw, come on, don’t
be like that,” said Jimmy. “You’ll hurt Esther’s
feelings.”
“Then she shouldn’ta
got mixed up with no cop,” Ronnie said with a scowl. “Shoulda found
herself a nice rib-eye or somethin’.”
“Rabbi,” I corrected
automatically.
“Esther!” someone
shouted, pushing through the crowd.
“Now what?” Lopez
muttered.
“Angelo,” I said,
recognizing the busboy who worked a lot of the same shifts I
did.
“Angelo Falcone,”
Napoli said quietly to Lopez. “Busboy and wannabe.”
“You okay?” Angelo
asked me. “I heard you was with Charlie when he bought
it.”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I
said.
“And you,” Angelo said, turning on Lopez and Napoli.
“You can’t pin this on me!”
“We weren’t planning
to, Angelo,” said Napoli.
“No way you can pin this hit on me, man!”
“Okay,” said
Lopez.
“I got an alibi!”
Angelo said, puffing out his skinny chest.
“Okay, you can go
now,” Napoli said.
“I got
witnesses!”
“Good to know,”
Napoli said.
Angelo scowled at
them. “I’ll call my lawyer!”
“Go do that,” said
Lopez.
“Now?”
“Now would be good,”
Lopez said.
“Yeah? Okay.” Angelo
added, clearly relishing the phrase, “He’ll eat you for
breakfast!”
“Okay,” Napoli said
absently, checking something in his notebook.
As Angelo departed,
Lucky noted, “He’s very ambitious.”
“Indeed,” said
Lopez.
Another flash went
off.
“We’ve got to get
your girlfriend—er, the witness—out of here,” Napoli said to
Lopez.
“Who called the
photographers?” I asked, annoyed by the flashing
lights.
“No one. They’re like
vultures, they just know,” Napoli
said.
“They monitor police
radio communications,” Lopez told me. “And flock to the scene of
anything that sounds juicy.”
“Especially when it’s
a mob killing,” Napoli added irritably. “That’s sexy.”
“Come on.” Lopez took
my elbow and tried to guide me away from Lucky. “Let’s
go.”
“Where are we going?”
I asked.
Napoli said, “We’re
taking you into protective custody.”
“What? No!” I pulled
away from Lopez. “You can’t do that! I haven’t done
anything!”
Lopez put his hands
on my shoulders, trying to calm me. “We know that, Esther. But
you’re a material witness in a mob hit. And the tabloids have
already got your name. So you’re in danger now.”
“But I didn’t see
anything!” I protested.
“Yeah, like everybody
else here,” Napoli said in disgust. “Six cops have been canvassing
for almost an hour, and nobody saw anything. Of
course.”
“But I really
didn’t!” I cried.
“Esther—”
“No! Listen to me!” I
jerked myself out of Lopez’s grasp and backed away.
When he reached for
me again, Lucky stepped between us. “I don’t care if you are her
boyfriend, that don’t give you the right to manhandle
her!”
“I’m not manhan . . .” Lopez paused for a moment, then
evidently decided to change course. “Esther, we need to go
somewhere sane and take your statement.”
“I’ve given my
statement three times already!” I said, still agitated by the word
“custody.”
“I know, and I’m
sorry,” Lopez said soothingly. “But we’ve got to go over every
detail—”
“There are no
details!” I insisted. “I didn’t see the killer! I didn’t see how it
happened! All I saw was Chubby Charlie suddenly die right in front
of me! After he’d asked me to help him! Or sort of asked me . . .
Or . . . I’d offered, anyhow, and now
he’s dead!”
The whole ton of
bricks came crashing down on me then. Stress, tension, anxiety,
confusion, fear, guilt. All of it. I started crying.
“Now look what you
done!” Lucky snarled at Lopez. The old wiseguy put his arm around
me and handed me a clean, white hanky. “She’s an actress. She’s
very sensitive!”
“I know that,” Lopez snapped. “I date her. Now get
your hands off her.”
“Whoa, he’s got a
pair, your boy,” Lucky said to me. “I like that in a
person.”
“Both of you, stop,”
I said wearily. “Everyone, please
stop.” I wiped my eyes and gave a watery sigh.
Lopez looked like he
wanted to apologize to me, but he said nothing. Napoli looked ready
to arrest everyone on Mulberry Street.
“I’m not going into
custody,” I said.
“All right,” Lopez
said, ignoring a scathing look from Napoli. “We’ll just talk about
what happened. And then we’ll talk
about your safety.”
“Okay.” I took a
breath and got a hold of myself. “I was looking at Charlie,” I
said. “Talking to him. He seemed hysterical. I was trying to calm
him down.” I described the tinkling sound of breaking glass I’d
heard, and the sharp whistling sound followed by the soft thud, and
I explained what I had seen. “And that’s all I saw. Charlie, with that horrible look of
surprise on his face and the blood spreading on his chest. I didn’t
see or hear anything else. Or anyone
else. He fell to the floor, and I started screaming.”
“Who was in the
restaurant when it happened?” Napoli asked.
“I’m not
sure.”
“Come on, Esther,”
Napoli said.
“You can call me ‘Miss Diamond,’ ” I said
coldly.
Lopez closed his
eyes, as if praying that none of this was really
happening.
“You didn’t recognize
any of the customers?” Napoli prodded.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Charlie was sitting
off in an alcove, and he came in a little early tonight. Most of
the regulars hadn’t shown up yet. I didn’t know any of the
customers who were sitting near him, and I don’t remember who else
was in the restaurant.” Mostly I just remembered Charlie keeling
over dead.
“And you didn’t hear
a car pull up outside?”
“No.”
“You didn’t see the
shooter on the other side of the window?”
“No, of course not,”
I said. “Charlie wasn’t sitting anywhere near the—”
“Detectives, we have
a big problem,” one of the CSU cops said, interrupting
us.
“What?” Napoli
asked.
“Come inside and have
a look.”
“We’re a little busy
here,” Napoli said tersely.
“You need to see
this,” the CSU cop insisted. “Both of you.”
Napoli gave an
irritable sigh. “All right.” He signaled to two patrolmen to join
us. He pointed at me and said to them, “This woman is a material
witness in this homicide. You are to keep an eye on her and keep
her under control. Do not—I repeat, do not—let her move from this spot until we get back.”
Then he turned and followed the CSU cop back into the
restaurant.
Lopez hesitated,
giving me a look of mingled concern and exasperation. “Are you
okay?”
“I want to go home.”
I felt exhausted and emotional. “Can’t you take me?”
“Not yet. We need
more informa—”
“I’ve told you
everything I saw.” I put my hand on his chest, wishing he would put
his arms around me again. “Please make Napoli let me
go.”
“That’s not how this
works, Esther.” His voice was firm, but his gaze softened as he
brushed my hair behind my ear. “You’re not—”
“Lopez!” Napoli
shouted, having stuck his head out of the door of Bella
Stella.
I glared at the bald
detective.
Lopez raised a hand
in acknowledgment but kept his eyes on me. “I have to go inside to
see what CSU’s problem is,” he said, stepping away from me. “Don’t
do anything but stand here and wait for me to come back.
Okay?”
I shrugged.
“Okay.”
He looked at me for
another moment, his expression suggesting he wasn’t sure I’d
comply, then turned and went into the restaurant.
This was not exactly
the reunion that I had been picturing for us. I doubted it was what
he’d imagined, either.
“Not seein’ nothing,”
Lucky said, distracting me from my morose musings about my love
life. “Always the smart choice.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a good policy,
kid. I’d stick with that story. Even if your boyfriend is a cop who needs his button.”
“So to
speak.”
I knew that getting
your “button” was one of the ways wiseguys referred to becoming
“made” men or getting inducted into a crime family. Lopez was new
at OCCB and wanted to make a good impression, of course. To belong,
to move up the ladder. I was well aware that tonight was a setback
for him, and that I was the cause.
“But I really
didn’t see anything, Lucky,” I said. “I
mean, how could I? As I was trying to tell Detective Charm a few
minutes ago, Charlie wasn’t sitting anywhere near . . . Oh, my
God!” I clutched Lucky’s arm as I realized what I was
saying.
“What’s
wrong?”
“Charlie was sitting
in that little alcove at the back of the restaurant!”
“He couldn’ta been,”
Lucky said, shaking his head. “They’re saying the shot that killed
him was fired through the front window.”
“I know. But I was
standing right next to him, and he was
back in that alcove when he was shot.”
“But you can’t even
see the alcove from the window.”
“And since when do
bullets go around corners?” I said.
Lucky whistled. “No
wonder the cops got a problem.”
We both turned our
gazes to the restaurant. Inside, through the restaurant’s front
window—which bore a hole from the shot fired tonight—I could see
Lopez talking to a CSU cop. They’d figured out the problem, all
right. Lopez made a smooth motion with his right hand while he
backed away from the window, still talking to the other cop. After
a moment, he shook his head and went back to the window with a
frown on his face.
Lucky said, “Your
boyfriend’s trying to follow the trajectory. And it don’t
work.”
I frowned, thinking
about various episodes of Crime and
Punishment that I’d seen. “Could Charlie have been hit by a
ricochet?”
Lucky thought it was
over for a moment, then shook his head. “Not where he was sitting.
Not if that bullet came through the front window.” After another
moment, of watching Lopez talk with the CSU cop, he added, “Betcha
that’s what they’re saying right now, too.”
“So how could that
bullet have hit Charlie?”
“And who the hell
fired it?” Lucky glanced dismissively at the two patrolmen and
added, “Everyone outside is actually telling the truth, Esther. No
one saw nothing.”
“Really?” It hadn’t
occurred to me that anyone but me was telling the
truth.
“Yeah. Put it all
together, and it don’t make no sense.” Lucky shook his head,
frowning like Lopez now. “I’m telling you, it’s like Charlie got
popped by a ghost.”