Authors: Faye Kellerman
He said, “So you’re a lieutenant in L.A?”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing out here, messing with this trash?”
“I was wangled into coming out here to be the translator for the cops. The vic was a brother-in-law to my brother. I told
him I’d poke around. I was just telling Micky that I think I’ve outlived my usefulness. Even the family is sick of my face.
Pretty good trick since I’ve only been here for two days.”
“Family…” Cork made a face. “I’ve got six brothers and sisters. Three of them are cops, so you know it’s gotta be bad news
right away. We get together every Christmas. It always starts off full of good cheer, but by the end of the evening, more
punches are thrown than at a boxing match. Sheez, I’ll take the street over pissed-off siblings any day of the year.”
“What can you do?” Decker said.
“What can you do is right.” Cork sighed. “So you’re bowing out?”
“Since I’m not adding anything, I think that’s the smartest thing to do.”
“So for what it’s worth, I’ll put my two cents in. This is just observation.” Cork was still staring at the pictures. “You
know what it looks like to me?”
“What?” Novack asked.
“It looks like Family—”
“I don’t think it’s Family, Bri.”
“I didn’t say it was Family, Mick, I said it
looks
like Family. Not current Family. Back four, five years when C.D. was still in the business and still aligned with the old
man. It’s not one of his, though. First off, C.D. don’t do nothing unless it’s big money, and this guy is obviously low level.
Second, C.D. would never,
ever
clean a mark in a hotel. Too many people, and C.D. don’t attract attention to himself. And third, and this may be rumor,
but last I heard, C.D. was out of the business. I’m just saying it looks like one of his. A single shot. Not much blood. No
extraneous shit. Clean and simple.”
“C.D.?” Decker asked.
“Christopher Donatti,” Novack answered him.
It took Decker a moment to absorb the words. Only then did a flood of images hit him like an overexuberant wave. Very few
of Decker’s murder cases were committed to instant memory: Chris’s was one of them. Eight years had passed since Decker’s
last contact with the younger Donatti, yet the details were still as fresh as a brisk wind. The murder of a high-school prom
queen, Donatti the lead suspect. He’d been Whitman back then, and though the last name had changed, Decker was sure that the
kid had not. Once a psycho…
“The hit looks like it was done by Chris Donatti?”
“It
looks
like it—that’s all. C.D. hasn’t been tied to anything since the old man had a massive coronary.”
“Joseph Donatti had a heart attack?” Decker asked.
“Yeah, Joey had a bad one.” Cork stared at him.
“Must have missed that one.” Decker swallowed. “When did this happen?”
“About four, five years ago,” Novack said.
“I’m slipping,” Decker said. “So does Chris Donatti run the Family?”
“You mean the Donatti Family? There is no Donatti Family. It dissolved.”
“What happened? Did a rival boot Chris out?”
“No, C.D.’s the one that dissolved it.” Cork stared at Decker. “You keep calling Donatti Chris? Are you on a first-name basis
with the guy?”
Decker shrugged. “So what’s he doing? C.D.?”
“We got a problem with him. The problem is he’s a cipher. He don’t talk.”
“What do you mean, he doesn’t talk?”
“Just that. He don’t talk. Complete opposite of the old man. Old man ordered a hit, half the world knew about it. Not C.D.
You know after the old man was retired, everyone was waiting to see what would happen. How C.D. would flex his muscle. Then
it came—two hits of top dealers in Washington Heights. Bam, bam. Clean as a whistle. In-and-out jobs. Donatti’s M.O. to a
tee. So we’re thinking, oh boy, C.D.’s moving in on Dominican territory. Watch out for the war. Then you know what happened?”
“What?”
“Nothing, that’s what happened. While the Doms are scrambling around, trying to reorganize after losing two bosses, someone
moves in and pays them all off. I’m not talking about chump change here; I’m talking big bucks. Next thing we know, half of
Wash Heights is suddenly Benedetto territory.”
“Chr—C.D.’s father-in-law.”
“You know more about this than you’re letting on.”
“No, I don’t know anything about these events. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Yeah, Benedetto was C.D.’s father-in-law. So we figured that C.D. went in and divided up the spoils between him and his father-in-law.
You know, as a gift to the old man. Except three months later, C.D. and Benedetto’s cow of a daughter are no longer wedded
in holy matrimony, and suddenly C.D. is gone. Like vanished off the face of the earth. The old man—Benedetto—he’s got all
the territory. So we figured that Benedetto muscled out Donatti, that the kid was either lying six feet under with dirt in
his eyes or implanted in a foundation of one of the Camden, New Jersey, rejuvenation projects. The other possibility, of course,
was that the guy was in hiding, deciding on his next move. If he’s laying low, we figured— oh boy, another war. So you know
what happened?”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, that’s what happened. So we think he’s dead. Then maybe twelve months later—this was about three or four years ago—
C.D. pops up out of nowhere. He’s livin’ uptown not too far from here, taking beaver shots of teenage girls—”
“Kiddie porn?”
“Nah, they’re all over eighteen. How do I know this? I’ve tried to bust the guy no less than ten times. His girls are all
righteous—for now. He’s got some Supreme Court decisions pending that may put him down for a while, but the guy is a weed.
He’ll pop back with something new. For the time being, we know he’s pimping his girls, but we can’t find the chink in the
armor. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because C.D. don’t talk.”
“He and the old man still in contact?”
“Yeah, sure. Since he’s surfaced, we see him visiting Joey every now and then. Nothing too heavy. Outta obligation, I think.
Joey adopted C.D. They’re not related. You probably know that.”
“I know that.”
“C.D.’s got no blood family, no friends, no nothing in the way of social connections. What he does have is one of the seediest
rags in the business. A twenty- to thirty-page glossy pictorial of young girls— all of them barely eighteen—dressed up as
even younger girls who play out every middle-aged guy fantasy known to mankind. You know—teacher/student, patient/candy striper,
making it with your daughter’s best friend—”
“Lovely.”
“I don’t know who the fuck he’s selling this shit to, but he must have some kind of market. What started as a cheap, homemade
job has blossomed into something with high-quality photographs and advertising. I’m not saying he’s ready for prime-time magazine
space, but there are buyers out there.”
“American enterprise.”
“Wanna know what I think?”
“What?” Decker asked.
“I think Donatti gave Benedetto Wash Heights as payment to get out of the Family. The guy is too much of a loner to take orders
from higher-ups. Not that he’s exactly come up in the world. If he’s living the good life, he’s hiding it well.”
“Don’t he own the building, Bri?” Novack popped in.
“This is true. He owns quite a bit of real estate around a hundred thirty-fifth in what’s called the Shona Bailey area. The
neighborhood has all these brownstones—nice babies, but in serious disrepair. The Bailey was doing real well for a while.
It was the darling of the dotcoms. Then the economy tanked and September eleventh hit. Last I heard he’s been picking up the
buildings for a song.”
Novack shook his head. “No one ever accused the kid of being brainless.”
“So if I were to look for him, I’d find him uptown around a hundred thirty-fifth?” Decker asked.
“Yes, I suppose, although I don’t know if he’d be in at nine forty-five, Sunday morning. Why would you want to look for him?”
“Because you said the hit looks like one of his. And if he preys on young girls, a desperate fifteen-year-old may be just
his kind of meat.”
“I don’t know why he’d mess with underage girls when he has lots of legit babes doing his bidding. Guy’s a pussy magnet—always
has been. The kind of bad boy that stupid girls love.”
Not just stupid girls
. Decker thought for a moment. “You have his address?”
Cork eyed him. “What are you going to do, Decker? Go over and ask him about it? If you want to go after Donatti, you don’t
just pop in and announce yourself. You go over there with warrants. Otherwise, he don’t talk to you.”
“I don’t have time for subtlety,” Decker said. “I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”
“Want me to come with you?” Novack offered.
Decker’s heart sank. He wanted to talk to Donatti alone. “Sure.”
“You gonna be a party to this nonsense, Mick?” Cork made a face.
Decker said breezily, “You know, Novack, he’s probably not even in. I’ve got your cell. If I get anywhere, I’ll call you.
Unless you
want
to come.”
Novack shook his head. “Not with the Knicks playing this afternoon. I promised the missus I’d clean out the garage. I’d like
to get it done so I can watch the game in peace.”
“Go home, Mick. I’ll be fine.” To Cork, Decker said, “The address?”
“You really want to do this?”
Decker nodded.
“I’ll look it up for you,” Cork said. “My notebook’s in my car. Hold on.”
Cork disappeared. Novack regarded Decker, staring at him before he spoke. “Where are you going with this, Pete?”
“Beats me. But I’m not having luck going the traditional route.”
“It’s not wise to get too involved in other people’s business.”
Don’t tread on me
. Decker said, “Hey, if you object, I won’t go.”
“Just don’t mess up anything, all right? Vice don’t like to look stupid.”
“I hear you.”
But the tension held fast. Neither spoke until Cork came back several minutes later holding a piece of paper. “It’s not too
far from here, ’bout fifteen blocks uptown. I forget if it’s between Riverside Drive and Broadway or just east of Broadway.”
“I’ll find it.”
Cork handed Decker the slip of paper. “Something’s not computing. You know more about Donatti than you’re letting on.”
“C.D. spent some time in California. We crossed paths.”
“Ah!” Cork said. “History or no history, you’re wasting your time. Even if he’s there, he won’t talk to you.”
That very well could be the case. Except that Decker had a weapon that obviously the cops didn’t know about. “Maybe one of
his girls will talk.”
“Pshhh.” The detective waved him off. “Nah, they don’t talk. I know ’cause I’ve tried. Whatever hold Donatti’s got on ’em
is a choke hold.”
R
ina would have killed him;
Novack—if he had known the entire story—would have blasted him for going it solo. It was irresponsible; it was dangerous;
it was just plain stupid. It was all those things because C.D. was a stone-cold psycho, C.D. was a killer, and C.D. hated
his guts. Yet Decker gave himself a pat on the back for being a trusting soul, facing the kid without so much as a nail file
for defense. But it was more than trust. After seven years of serving as a lieutenant, directing his charges, and pushing
paper rather than solving crimes, Decker was buzzed with the thrill of action. Except for several exceptional cases, he had
been a prisoner of his own success, trapped behind a desk, his reflexes slowed with age and atrophy.
What kind of reception he would get, Decker didn’t bother to contemplate. As long as Chris didn’t shoot him on the spot, anything
else would be okay.
Going by foot, he discovered that the area looked closer on the map than it did in person. By the time he found the place,
it was ten-thirty in the morning. C.D.’s building was uptown, six stories of dilapidated brick material several blocks away
from potentially lovely brownstones. But it had a lobby with the entrance door locked tight. There were buttons that corresponded
to the various units—twenty in all. The fifth and sixth floors were taken up by one tenant: MMO Enterprises. Since C.D. supposedly
owned the building and used it as
his studio, Decker tried that button first. It rang several times; then to his surprise, a woman responded over the intercom,
“MMO.”
“Police,” Decker said.
A momentary delay, and then a loud buzz, one that allowed him to come into the building. He took the stairs up five flights
and stepped out into the corridor. There was a single door to the left, marked with the number 13. He pushed another button,
and again was buzzed in. He immediately stepped through a metal detector. Of course he set it off.
In front of him was a girl who couldn’t have been over fifteen.
“There’s a bucket for your keys and wallet and anything else you might have that would cause it to go off. Could you please
step back and try it again?”
Decker followed her instructions, picking up his personal effects on the other side. There was a lad sitting by the girl’s
side, reading a magazine. He was of slight build, but maybe he only appeared that way because he was wearing an oversize Hawaiian
shirt. Decker couldn’t see the outline of a gun, but he was sure it was there. The boy/man’s eyes traveled to Decker’s.
The girl said, “Can I help you, Officer?”
She was dressed for efficiency—a black suit, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. No makeup. Her hands were as smooth as
a baby’s, nails clipped short and no polish.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Donatti, please.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Her eyes never wavered from his.
“No, but it’s important.” He showed her his gold shield and ID.
The guard put down the magazine and gave Decker a hard stare. Decker answered him back with a smile. The girl exchanged glances
with the guard. He nodded.
She said, “Hold on a moment, sir.” She picked up a phone and punched in several numbers.
“Mr. Donatti, I’m very sorry to disturb you, but there’s a policeman here.”