Captain Peter McManus was young for his rank. He’d earned it with a bachelor’s degree from John Jay, a master’s from Fordham, and from being a whiz on the civil service exams.
Thin, tall, angular, short hair, the captain sat at his desk dressed in his civilian clothes. McManus had a look on his face that Esposito couldn’t quite interpret. Is he pissed off or merely annoyed? Or is it a fake expression of concern to cover what he’s about to dump on me?
The captain nodded for Esposito to sit. He had both hands on top of a thin manila folder.
“What’s up, skip?” Esposito asked.
“Detective Esposito, I’m sure you have heard the technical expression, shit rolls downhill.”
Here it comes.
He answered, “I have, sir.”
McManus continued. “Subparagraph one says the higher the shit rolls from, the faster and harder it lands.”
Esposito frowned, saying nothing, the best course of action at this point.
He looked at the folder under McManus’s hands. Clearly, the answer was in that folder. Although it couldn’t be much of an answer. The folder wasn’t very thick.
“How high up are we talking about?”
“You want to know how high up?”
“Sure.”
“Borough Command.”
“That’s high.”
“It is. And I got the feeling that Borough Command is just one stop on the way down from even higher.”
“Shit.”
“That’s what I said.”
McManus slid the folder toward Esposito. Esposito didn’t look at it. Didn’t touch it.
“I don’t know who called who or what or why. All I know is that somebody with a good amount of juice wants us to arrest two bad guys.”
“For what?”
“Assault.”
“Of who?”
“Of somebody with a lot of juice.”
“What’d they do to him?”
“Don’t have the details. Something bad enough so that the brass wants these guys brought in.”
“When?”
“As soon as you can get organized. Like now.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely.”
“We know where to find them?”
“We know where to start. Someplace on the ass end of Red Hook.”
“So they gave it to the Seven-Six and not some regular Warrant Squad.”
“Correct.”
“And after we arrest them?”
“We get them into Central Booking and the higher-ups will take care of the arraignments, or whatever they want to do from there. Presumably burying these guys in a very deep place which will take a very long time to crawl out of.”
Esposito opened the folder.
There were two warrants. One for Ciro Baldassare. One for James Beck. Behind the warrants were a few pages of arrest records for both men and prison records. Baldassare had six pages. Beck, two.
This was a shit assignment. Outside of his normal duties. Way outside the normal chain of command. He had very little background on the assailants, and apparently he wasn’t going to get any. Plus, it looked like the whole thing had to be done on the quiet. But with all the brass connected to this, if he fucked up, things would get loud and angry very fast. This was all risk and no reward.
“What’s the story on these guys?”
“Assume they are armed and dangerous. Assume there may be others at this location also armed and dangerous.”
“Great.”
“Do they know we are coming for them?”
“Assume they know. How quickly can you get organized?”
“To do this right?” asked Esposito.
“I sure as hell don’t want you to do it wrong.”
“It feels like we should pull together some decent backup. Come in hard.”
“I don’t think you have time to get a lot of backup or tactical guys. Go in fast. Get out fast. Don’t make a big deal out of it. But don’t get caught with your pants down.”
Typical command bullshit. McManus wanted it done right, but he wanted it done fast. The two rarely went together.
Esposito knew he would have to organize a decent-size show of force. You didn’t go to an unknown location where there could be unknown firepower without as many bodies as you could muster.
But he’d have to do it within the precinct. He didn’t have enough time to liaise with other divisions for personnel. Nor was he going to get the command backup to pull that off.
McManus sat staring at him. Esposito sat thinking it through. Start with the precinct sergeants to get squads organized. Get the patrol guys to provide bodies. Gather up as many from his detective detail as possible. Then get everything coordinated and go hither and yon out to Red Hook to arrest two guys on chickenshit warrants who were clearly way more dangerous than the charges made them seem.
Esposito picked up the folder.
“I want to do this right.”
McManus gave Esposito a look that said, don’t fuck with me, and asked, “How much time?”
Esposito checked his watch. “It’s going to take me a few hours to find the bodies. Get everybody organized. Coordinate shifts. Absolute soonest I can do it is tonight, late. Actually, early Friday morning. You know the drill. Two, three in the morning. Go in hard and fast, put guns on people, haul these guys out, and get the fuck away as fast as possible.”
“Sounds good,” said McManus. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Esposito didn’t even want to think about the list of things he needed or would like. He stood up, picked up the folder, and left.
57
It was nearly dark by the time the three mercenaries left and Manny came back into the bar.
Beck told Manny, “You could have come in the back way.”
“I wanted to wait until they left.”
“What did they do after I let them spot me?”
“Took pictures of you walking in, then walked around the area, and drifted off. I guess back to their car.”
“Sounds like they were pretty thorough.”
“I suppose.”
“We should eat soon.”
“All my prep is done. I’ll move everything up to the big kitchen. ’Bout a half hour.”
“Thanks.”
*