Luther Addison was on modified desk duty until someone leaked which phone he’d answer, so NYPD sent him home. After food shopping at Zabar’s for his Giselle and their baby son, he rented a black Buick Century, waited until dark, and drove the Williamsburg Bridge to Myrtle Avenue, making his way to Howard Beach. The funeral home was on 159th Avenue.
Fat Philly was working the front door, shaking hands like he was running for office. Red shirt open at the collar under a black suit, heavy gold chain on his wrist, red carnation in his lapel, gray patent leather loafers: His idea of appropriately somber for the photographers and TV crews.
One of the Guardians out of the 1- 13 in nearby Jamaica told him a snitch reported Fat Philly behind the scheme that landed Little Flaps in Bridges. Addison wondered if Philly was making some kind of move, knowing the TV lights would keep the real mobsters at bay.
To dodge a tail, Addison drove the Belt Parkway and over to Rockaway Boulevard to circle Aqueduct before doubling back to 159th. Then he did it again. And again, driving past the funeral home, using the mirrors to see who was coming and going.
Shortly after ten o’clock, he returned to find Fat Philly putting Mrs. Ciccanti and her daughter Angela in a limo; the fat man went inside, where he stayed even after the funeral home shut down. The crowd gone, Addison parked up the block and cut the engine.
His partner Joe Dalrymple arrived shortly before midnight.
Frowning in confusion, Addison took off his baseball cap and ran his hand across his close-cropped hair. Running no more than thirty feet behind him when a weapon was discharged, Dalrymple knew Addison hadn’t taken down Little Flaps, and Addison was fairly sure Dalrymple, who’d bent left coming out of the patrol car, hadn’t shot him either.
Then why a visit to pay respects, especially after the widowed mother had gone?
Sharon Knight said, “If he did it, if he’s lying and playing us for fools, I’ll take him down myself.”
In the cafeteria at 100 Centre Street, white faces nodded. Who didn’t know Knight was angling to become the first African American Homicide Bureau chief in the D.A.’s office? Breaking a black cop in Reagan’s America would look good on her resumé.
She knew they’d think her ambition would help make it go away, that she’d allow it to land on Addison to curry favor with NYPD and the right-wing media. Maybe they figured they’d let her choose whether to bring it to the grand jury, and then they couldn’t lose. If she got an indictment, fine. If she didn’t, it’d be a public failure by an African American. Or worse, it’d been seen as a refusal by a black woman to bring a black cop to justice.
She didn’t care what they thought as long as they turned over the files on Little Flaps and Fat Philly, and IAD’s jackets on Hill and Dalrymple.
She told Luther Addison they would.
She didn’t expect they’d be delivered by Sarah Tolchinsky, the Homicide Bureau’s deputy chief.
Tolchinsky, a tall Hassidim with skin that seemed translucent, appeared at Knight’s cubicle and waved for her to follow. They returned to her office where musty blinds prevented a view of the Woolworth Building.
The files were on her desk. She’d requested them before she learned of Knight’s interest. Twenty-nine years in the District Attorney’s office allowed her to recognize an IAD cover-up the moment it began. The photo in the Post told her they saw Addison as an easy mark for a frame, a patsy.
“What’s more important to you? Your career or seeing this through?” Tolchinsky asked, as she closed her door.
Knight suppressed an inadvertent grin.
“Your career. You’re young. Fine,” Tolchinsky waved, “but let’s see if we can help you and him.”
She allowed Knight to use the files at a table in the corner.
An hour or so later, lost in a confusing brief crafted by one of Knight’s peers, Tolchinsky heard a voice.
“Damn,” Knight repeated. She quickly double-checked the dates she’d scribbled on a yellow pad, and then stared at her boss.
“What?” Tolchinsky stood.
“I-We’ve got it,” Knight replied, wisely.
Fat Philly was relegated to page seven of the Post, bounced from the front page when an oil truck flipped and burned on the George Washington Bridge.
“This guy’s a moron,” said August, tapping the paper.
Lucy Addison had put up coffee and sliced a pound cake her son brought.
W.E. wore a bathrobe over his pajamas. His stepson, in brown slacks and sienna turtleneck, sat in his mother’s seat at the table in a sunny kitchen that could barely accommodate two.
Steele leaned against the refrigerator. “He said…?”
“He told me not to worry,” August replied.
“About…?”
August shrugged. “I shook his hand and told him it was a terrible thing. He said ‘Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine.’”
“Think he made you?” W.E. asked.
“You forget I’m half Sicilian,” August said. “We spoke Italian.”
Luther Addison managed a smile. The three old men came up through NYPD when black men comprised about two percent of the force. They knew how to use what little they had.
“As for you, Luther,” August said, “you run about the worse sit I’ve ever seen.” He reached for another slice of the pound cake. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn up in some TV footage. Circling, circling…”
“‘It’s gonna be fine,’” Hammer Steele repeated. “Meaning it falls on Luther?”
“Oh yeah. Especially since Joey Dalrymple showed up.”
Steele looked down at Luther. “Your partner.”
“And Andy Hill’s running buddy since the Academy,” August added.
“Andy Hill.” The dark-skinned Steele grimaced his distaste.
W.E. watched his friends. Marrying Hill and Dalrymple told him they were building to something.
“Somebody says Hill’s got history with Little Flaps,” August said.
“Who?” W.E. asked, his voice frail.
“Hammer.”
The Addison men turned to Henry Steele.
“The Genoveses say,” said Steele, who tapped an old source. “Little Flaps Ciccanti ripped off Hill.”
Luther let out a little cough. He said, “August 19, 1978. Aqueduct. Fat Philly’s crew, including Flaps, took down fourteen hundred dollars from a sixty-nine-year-old man who hit the trifecta for the first time in his life. Same afternoon Andy Hill claimed someone stole his wife’s mink out of the trunk of his car, which she parked at… Aqueduct.”
“No coincidence,” said August, who couldn’t decide if he found Addison ’s thoroughness annoying or amusing.
W.E. said, “If the UPS facility in Howard Beach gets ripped off, the Feds will think the Gambinos backed it.” He shook his head. “Fat Philly went to the Genoveses for protection?”