Eighty-Eight Jimmy

EIGHTY-EIGHT

Jimmy

NO MATTER HOW HARD he tries, Jimmy Cunniff can't get the idea out of his head—or his gut—that Anthony Licata and Joe Champi are the type to take orders and not give them, as slick with their grift as they've always been.

But if he's right about that, it keeps bringing him back to the same place:

Who's been giving them orders all this time?

It's easy to find the original connection between Champi and Licata, they came out of the academy the same year, originally partnered together in Washington Heights, stayed in touch even if they went in different directions the longer they stayed in the department.

Neither one of them ever made detective, what was supposed to be both the goal and the dream for young cops like them. So neither one of them ever showed much interest in working their way up through the ranks, or got anywhere near being a boss.

Nothing for Jimmy to go on here except instinct. But he has thoroughly convinced himself that somebody else was calling the shots when Champi and Licata were moving up into the big leagues of strong-arming and grift, moving in on some of the richest guys in town, creating a business model of high-end custodial work, cleaning up messes for rich daddies, making enough money over the years that they could even get into loan-sharking for somebody like Jane's ex-husband, that phony French prick.

He can't see them as bosses.

Jimmy is back in the city tonight, talking about this with Detective Craig Jackson in the back room at P. J. Clarke's, three fat file folders on the table in front of Jackson.

One for Champi, one for Licata.

One for Bobby Salvatore, who is a boss.

"Couple of dirty cops and a much dirtier mob guy from the Island," Jackson says. "You'd think that at some point destiny would have brought them together. But I cross-checked the system like a madman and came up with nada."

"Salvatore never got caught up in a gambling sweep in the city?"

"Jimmy," he says. "I know you want this to be true, that they had to cross paths. But it might not have happened."

"Wouldn't be the first blind alley I ever went down in my life."

Jimmy goes back through one file while Craig Jackson goes through another. Then they switch. They are both taking neat bites of bourbon as they do. Not Pappy. Clarke's doesn't have it. Jimmy asked. Blanton's tonight.

Jimmy is going over Salvatore's file again, the times he was arrested in Nassau County, not for gambling, mostly for assault, from the time he was a kid and collecting for Sonny Blum. An even bigger boss. But somehow he never did serious time. Sonny Blum owned a lot of Long Island for a long time, leaving the big, bad city to the Italians, owned it until dementia got him before another family did. Sonny's business model must have included some judges, too.

Jimmy is running his finger down one of the pages on Salvatore when he stops.

"Arrested as a juvenile offender," he says.

"Who?"

"Salvatore," Jimmy says.

Slides the file back to Craig Jackson, points to the year.

"He would have been, what, about sixteen?" Jimmy says.

"Sounds right."

"What was it for?"

"He was a minor," Jackson says. "Sealed."

"You think maybe you could unseal it?"

It's getting busier in the back room, and noisier, so Craig Jackson goes outside to 55th to make his calls. Jimmy sips Blanton's, remembering when he was young in this place and it was filled with cops and robbers and athletes and actors and even hookers and even way past midnight the night always felt as if it were just getting started.

Jackson is smiling when he comes back to the table.

"Assault," he says. "Shocker, I know. Some buddies of his from Roslyn in a beef with some boys from Hell's Kitchen. Young Bobby put two of theirs in the hospital, one with a fractured skull. Took out an eye on the other."

Jackson had already finished his drink before he went outside. He reaches over and picks up Jimmy's glass now and finishes his.

"How long did Salvatore go away for?"

"He didn't," Detective Craig Jackson says. "And guess who the arresting officer was?"