Bronx Requiem(125)

“Checks the camera, usually says hi or something and rings me in.”

“Does he leave his apartment door open for you, or make you wait for him to open it when you get up to his place?”

“Usually leaves it open.”

“We’re going over to Palmer’s place. You’re going to buzz him, and tell him you have to talk to him about the meeting at One PP.”

“Then what?”

“Then that’s it. He buzzes you in, you walk away with one of my associates. You wait with him until I tell him to let you go.”

“Let me go, or put a bullet in my head?”

“No, Mr. Ippolito. You do what I’ve said, and you won’t die today.”

“What do you mean, today?”

“If you don’t keep your mouth shut, if you don’t play this out to the end, you get a bullet right between your f*cking eyes.”

Ippolito stared across the table at Beck. The dangerous, grim reality of what was happening robbed Raymond Ippolito of all expression. He looked as if he’d aged ten years since he’d walked into the restaurant. He opened his mouth, tried to say something, stopped, and then forced out the words.

“You’ll never get away with it, Beck. He’s a cop for chrissake. You know who is father is? They’ll turn over heaven and earth…”

Beck pitched forward and snarled. “And I’ll turn over heaven and hell if I have to. He pays for killing my friend, for trying to put my friends back in jail, for conspiring with criminals who torture and prostitute women and girls. You’ve got one chance to pay for your part in this. Stand up, walk out of here, and take it.”





75

John Palmer lived on the eighteenth floor of a building on Columbus Avenue near 100th Street that had been thoroughly vetted late Saturday night by the master burglars Ricky and Jonas Bolo.

The building had been designed to provide housing for up-and-coming singles and young marrieds who were content with living in hundreds of identical Sheetrock boxes stacked on top of each other, floor after floor.

In order to squeeze the maximum amount of profit from the absurdly high rents, instead of doormen and lobby staff, the building provided a large cage in the basement manned round-the-clock by minimum-wage workers who signed for an endless stream of deliveries from Amazon, UPS, FedEx, FreshDirect, local restaurants, dry cleaners, and other merchants. They, in turn, sent texts to the residents, who then made the monumental effort to ride an elevator downstairs to get their stuff. The building euphemistically dubbed this their concierge service.

Security in and out of the building depended on a video intercom/buzzer system and cameras in the lobby, elevators, and stairwell.

At five minutes after one P.M., John Palmer stood in his kitchen making coffee. He planned on being dressed and ready to leave for the meeting at One PP by two o’clock. His intercom buzzer rang. Barefoot, he padded out to his small foyer, checked the flat-screen display, and saw Raymond Ippolito staring into the camera.

“What’s up, Ray?”

“Gotta come up and talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Something I shouldn’t be yelling about out on the street.”

Palmer was already unnerved by what his father had told him, plus Juju Jackson never showing up for their meeting. Ippolito appearing unannounced felt like more bad news, but Palmer wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Okay. C’mon up.”

Palmer leaned on the buzzer, opened his apartment door, and then headed back to his kitchen.

*

Down on Columbus Avenue, when the buzzer rang, Ippolito remained standing in front of the intercom, while Beck, who had stood out of range of the intercom camera, pushed open the door and slipped into the lobby, head down, his face covered by a ball cap.

A couple walked past him while two women returning from their Sunday morning yoga class walked in behind him. He continued past the security camera in the mailbox area, and into the main lobby. Beck had been briefed by Ricky and Jonas about the location of the security cameras in the lobby and near the elevator banks. He made sure to stand out of camera range, mixing with others waiting for one of the building’s four elevators to arrive.

*

Outside, Ippolito faked another ring of Palmer’s buzzer, waited for ten seconds, checked his watch, and walked away. He did this exactly as instructed, knowing Ciro Baldassare stood on the other side of Columbus Avenue watching him. Ippolito continued uptown to 101st Street and turned east, heading toward Central Park. When he reached Central Park West, he crossed the street and waited for Baldassare to join him, where they would wait until Ciro told him he could go.

*

Beck stood aside as four people stepped out of the elevator, then he followed the gossiping yoga ladies into the cab, along with a man carrying grocery bags and his wife talking on her cell phone. Just before the elevator doors shut, a woman with a dog and a two-year-old in a stroller rushed on board.

Beck waited until everyone had pressed their floors so he could pick a floor higher than the others. He leaned forward and pressed twenty-two, keeping his head down so the ball cap hid his face from the elevator’s security camera and nobody noticed the formidable guy with a lumpy, bruised face.

On twenty-two he exited the empty elevator, turning to his right, knowing that like most apartment buildings there were no security cameras in the hallways. The only cameras were at the top and bottom of the emergency-exit stairwell.