Deacon King Kong(96)

“We kicked in the door and got nothing. The place was dark. Guido was obviously home sleeping. So we left. The other two cars pulled out first. I was the last to leave.

“We often rode solo in those days. So I got in my car, and as I do, I see this guy running off the dock. Where he was hiding, I don’t know. I don’t even know why he was running, but I figured he was running from me. So I cranked the squad car to get him, and damn if the car wouldn’t start. No kidding. That’s the first thing they tell you: ‘Don’t shut the car off.’ So now I’m cooked, being a rookie. So I didn’t radio ahead to the other two cars there was a suspect on foot. Instead I took off on foot after the guy.

“He was moving, but I was young then. I almost had him at Van Marl and Linder, but then he got an extra gear somewhere and pulled away and got a few yards on me. At the corner of Slag and Van Marl, I was gaining on him. Then in the middle of the intersection, the gobshit turned around and pulled a gun on me. Pulled it outta nowhere. He had me dead to rights.

“And then this truck comes outta nowhere about forty miles an hour. Boom—ran him down in the intersection. Killed him on the spot.

“The truck driver said, ‘I never saw the guy. Never saw him.’

“He was right. It was dark. The guy jumped into the intersection outta nowhere. No way the driver could’ve seen him. It was an accident. It happened fast.

“The truck driver kept apologizing. I said it’s okay. Hell, I was grateful. Anyway, I ran to a police phone around the corner to get help. When I came back, the truck was gone. All we could do was scrape the guy up off the ground and call the morgue.

“Well, about six months later, they sent me over here again, saying they’d got this guy Guido for transporting some tractors, or some such thing. So I drove over here in a rush again, this time alone. But instead of transporting crap, I see a big front-end loader over there where your storage place is now. It’s a big tractor that scoops up the dirt and there’s a guy in there working the thing. He’s got only one good hand and one good leg. I get in close and look in the cab. It was the guy who was driving that truck.

“I said, ‘You’re the truck driver!’

“He didn’t miss a beat. He said, ‘I never saw the guy. If you hadn’t shut your motor off, the whole thing would’ve never happened.’”

Potts chuckled. “I think that was one of the two or three things Guido ever said to me.”

Elefante tried to stifle a grin, but he couldn’t help himself. “A lot of saints don’t start out well, but they end that way.”

“You saying he was a saint?”

“Not at all. But he never forgot a face. And he was loyal. Aren’t saints loyal?”

“Speaking of saints,” Potts said. He pointed to Five Ends church. “Know anybody there?”

“I see ’em from time to time. Nice people. Never bother anybody.”

“I seem to recall a lady from there died in the harbor a couple of years ago.”

“Nice lady. Took a swim. Can’t blame her, really.”

“That happened after I got transferred to the One-Oh-Three in Queens,” Potts said.

“I never did hear how that movie ended,” Elefante said.

“It didn’t end well.”

“Why’s that?”

Potts was silent a moment. “I’m retiring in three months, Tommy. I’ll be outta your hair.”

“Me too.”

“How’s that?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m gone in about that time. Less if I can. I’m selling this place.”

“You in trouble?”

“Not at all. I’m retiring.”

Potts ate that one for a long minute. He looked over his shoulder at Elefante. He was tempted to say “Retiring from what?” He’d heard criminals declare they would retire all the time. But Elefante was different. A smuggler, yes. Effective, yes. But a bad criminal? Potts wasn’t sure what that was anymore. Elefante was surly, clever, unpredictable. Never moved the same thing twice in a short time period. Never seemed to get too greedy. Never moved drugs. He kept his storage place and normal shipments from his boxcar to cover his tracks. He greased the cops like the rest, but with an instinct for survival, and—Potts had to admit it—decency. He could smell a young, hungry cop, and could sniff out a clean one too. He never framed cops or cornered those on payola. He rarely asked for favors. It was just business to him. He was smart enough never to try to grease Potts or any of the few square cops Potts knew at the Seven-Six. That said a lot about Elefante.

Still, Elefante was part of the family, and they did some terrible things. Potts tried to ferret out the difference between an unfair world and a terrible one. Thinking about it confused him. What difference did it make if a guy stole a dozen refrigerators and sold them for five thousand bucks as opposed to a guy who sold fifty thousand bucks’ worth of refrigerators and changed the tax code to help him make eighty thousand? Or a dope-dealing bum whose heroin destroyed entire families? Which one to turn a blind eye to? If any? I ought to be an ostrich, he thought bitterly. ’Cause I don’t give a damn. I’m in love with a dirt woman. And she doesn’t know my heart.

Through the blisters of thought, he saw Elefante watching him. “I hear guys say they’ll retire all the time,” he said finally.