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bedlamsbardSnark. No real point. Carmine is snarky and Danny is pissed off and it should be illegal to be conscious when he deals with medical personnel.
“Stella, tell me you’re fucking with me,” Flack said, voice taut with disbelief. Danny glanced up from the computer, loops and whorls and arches spinning in front of his eyes. Aiden was looking up too, chin propped on her fist where it rested on the table. “Stella – Jesus, Stella. Are you all right? Yeah, okay, so maybe that was a dumb question. I’m on my way, ya’ got that? Don’t go anywhere. Yeah, fine, tell Mac I asked about him if that’ll make him happy.” He snapped his phone shut. “You guys won’t believe this,” he said.
“Mac won the lottery,” Aiden said.
“No.” He rolled his eyes. “Ya’ think he’d gamble? He’d pull out the odds, but he won’t pull out his money for one lousy ticket. He and Stella were involved in a shooting over in Staten Island; I gotta get over there. You comin’ along for the ride?”
Danny lept away from the computer. “Hell yeah,” he said. “If I have to look at one more print, I’m gonna scream.”
“You don’t have to look at them,” Aiden pointed out, raising her eyebrows. She got up from her chair, leaning over to hang up her lab coat and grab her jacket. “The computer does all that for you. Benefits of modern technology. Christ, I woulda hated this job back in the’80s.”
“You gotta look at them if they don’t gotta match in AFIS and you’re checkin’ if they got a match to any’a the other prints you lifted,” Danny said. “Trust me, if I ever see this guy’s fingers, I’m not gonna need to print him. I’m gonna know he’s the perp with one good look at his hands.”
Flack and Aiden exchanged amused looks. “Be careful what you wish for, pal,” Flack said. “’member that case with the monastery –”
“– the haunted monastery,” she pointed out gleefully. “Ghosts, ya’ know,” she added in an off-side to Danny.
Flack ground his teeth. “The monastery,” he said again. “Vic chewed off his own hand, yeah?”
Danny blinked. “Okay,” he said. “That’s sick.”
“He was handcuffed to the wall,” Aiden explained. “And it was the only way he could get free –”
“His hand,” Danny repeated disbelievingly. “I mean – jeez, sounds like one’a those urban legends.”
“This is New York,” Flack said. “Whaddaya mean, ‘legends?’”
*
“When you asked if I wanted to go out to breakfast,” Stella said, sipping at her coffee warily, “this was not what I was thinking about.”
Mac gave her a patient look. “What were you thinking about?” he asked, flinching away from the EMT’s gentle hands.
“Detective Taylor –” the paramedic said, sounding frustrated and looking like he wanted to nail Mac to the bottom of the ambulance until he held still. “You’re going to need stitches,” he added, like that would give Mac a reason to sit still.
“It’ll be fine,” Mac said, and the paramedic’s expression said he’d happily strangle Mac. “It’ll get infected, Detective Taylor.”
“Well,” Stella said, “I was expecting indoors. Food.” She raised the styrofoam cup of coffee one of the paramedics had poured out of a thermos. It tasted like bottom of the pot, cold and reheated, and she probably could have stuck her gun in and watched it melt. She was surprised the styrofoam cup was in one piece, although it was probably just a matter of minutes. “Conversation. Not getting shot at, or near. Not having the SWAT team standing by, and not standing around an ambulance with a bunch of paramedics. No offense, Zeke.”
“None taken,” the EMT said. “Detective Taylor, hold still.”
“I’ll tie him down,” Stella offered helpfully. “Mac, listen to the guy with drugs in the back of his car.”
“Stella.”
“What?” Zeke said. “I do have drugs in the back of the van. Do you want me to have to use them on you?” He was a small brown man with dark puppydog eye and black hairs, and his small hands moved with quick, easy efficiency across Mac’s foerhead. “What the hell did you do, Detective Taylor?”
“He hit a coffee table,” Stella said as Mac opened his mouth. “With his head.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was his elbow.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” a sharp voice cracked. Stella glanced up and over towards the gates in front of the driveway, where a pair of uniforms were attempting to bar a seal gray Jaguar from entry. It took her a moment to recognize the man leaning out of the window, and then her mouth twisted in distaste and dislike.
“Look, pal –” one of the uniforms said.
Stella set the coffee carefully down next to Mac. “I’ll handle this,” she called, walking over. “Mr. Constantine,” she said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Constantine stepped out of the car and slammed the door. “Keeping you from arresting another one of my caporegimes,” he said. “And making sure that the Pagliuca don’t randomly show up at my door with a hit squad, blaming me for Astra Pagliuca’s murder.”
“I’ll park on the street,” Carmine d’Alessandro said, pulling out of the driveway. He grinned a moment at Stella, teeth straight and white against his pale skin, then the car vanished behind the hedge/wrought iron fence that surrounded the Pagliuca grounds.
“Why should I arrest Ace Aciello?” Stella asked, crossing her arms. “Is there a good reason I should arrest him?”
D’Alessandro reappeared, adjusting the cut of his leather jacket. “Uh, which one?” he asked.
Stella glared at him. “Come on up,” she said after a moment. “Don’t touch anything, or I’ll shoot you. Just remember I’m a sleep-deprived, PMSing woman with a gun and a pair of handcuffs.”
“I’ll remember that,” Constantine said.
D’Alessandro arched a russet-red eyebrow. “I usually ask for dinner and a date first,” he said to Stella. “At the very least, a drink and a dance.”
“Don’t make me shoot you,” Stella snapped.
“I never make a beautiful woman do anything,” d’Alessandro said. “The sex is always better when they do what they want to do, not what I want to do.”
“Hey, pal,” a familiar voice called. “You know there’s laws against harassment?”
“I could have handled it, Flack,” Stella said, as the three younger detectives strolled up the road behind d’Alessandro. Constantine was already down by Ace and Astra, and she didn’t miss the way Danny’s eyes flicked to him briefly before going back to her.
“C’mon, let me arrest him for insultin’ a lady,” Flack said. “Or a cop,” he added at her warning look. “Please?”
“Nice company you got, Danny,” Carmine said.
“I like it fine,” Danny said quietly. “Least they keep the law, not break it.”
“Constantine keeps the law as much as we break it.”
Danny’s laugh sounded forced. “Yeah,” he said. “You just keep telling yourselves first. Maybe the cops’ll believe it someday.”
“The cops don’t need to believe anything. All they need to do is read the numbers and the news.” D’Alessandro grinned again. “It’s the feds that matter, and they know who’s keeping civilian bodies off the streets.”
“Tell that to the homicide whose pieces I peeled off the sidewalk last week,” Danny snapped. “Tell that to the kids who ain’t ever gonna see their mommas or their dads again because a couple of gangbangers went on joyrides. Yeah, Carmine, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Carmine took a step toward him. “You can tell it to the Mob wives who are going to see their husbands or sons again. You can tell it to the civilians who are alive right now because Constantine has enough scruples not to loose a couple rounds into Times Square for fun, and you can try telling it to the made men who’ve taken bullets in the chest so that they miss some tourist from Texas. Tell them that what Constantine’s doing doesn’t mean anything.”
“Oh,” Danny said. “Yeah. Yeah, that helps a lot. So a dozen Mafioso decide they wanna play good guy, see if the jury looks a little more kindly on them when their trials roll around. Yeah, that really hlps. You know what, Carmine? Fuck you. Fuck you and Val, and fuck Constantine too. I told Val I was done with him twelve years ago, and I haven’t changed my mind since.”
D’Alessandro stared at him for one threatening moment, and Stella felt her breath catch in her throat. He had the look of a very dangerous man who’d just been angered to the point of losing control, and was wavering on the line between sense and senselessness. “That,” he said, “you can try telling Fat Freddy when his hitmen come for you.” He turned and stalked away toward Val.
“Now can I arrest him?” Flack demanded.
“No,” Danny said. “You’re not gonna arrest any’a my uncle’s guys. They can get their own damn asses killed, I don’t want anything to do with them and I don’t want my people to have anything to do with them.”
“That might be a little hard, Danny,” Aiden said.
“I don’t care,” Danny said.
Stella raised her eyebrows. “You mind explaining what that little argument was about?” she asked.
Danny was staring determinedly away toward the Pagliuca house. He blinked and looked back at her when she spoke. “Carmine works for my uncle,” he said.
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
“He’s a nice guy, we just…don’t get along very well.”
“Yeah, evidently,” Aiden snorted. “How’s Mac, Stella? Flack said he got hurt or somethin’ –”
“He hit his head on the coffee table,” Stella said. “The paramedics are stitching him up – or at least they were trying to. I wouldn’t put it past Zeke to knock him out and tie him to a stretcher.”
“What happened?” Flack asked.
She shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, and I was there. Mac got knocked out, there were explosions, Astra Pagliuca was tied up in her room with a homicidal lunatic standing behind her with a cleaver –”
“Wait, Whackjob was here?” Danny said, sounding distracted. “Tell me you got the bastard, Stella.”
“Well, Ace Aciello did,” Stella said. “Fired a couple into his head. Self-defense,” she added.
“Bastard,” Danny said with venom, and didn’t offer an explanation.
“Whackjob?” Flack said. “What, is that a personality description or a –”
“It’s his nickname,” Danny said. “Vincent Patriso gave it to him when we were sixteen we got in a fight in a bar belongs to one’a the Patriso underbosses. Two Pelham boys died, one’a them so badly fucked up they had to identify him using dental records. I think his real name’s Paul, but I’ve never heard anybody use it. Whackjob Cestra, that’s him. NYPD’s got him for at least a dozen homicides, only there’s never been enough evidence to nail him.” He grinned a moment. “You guys got no idea how fuckin’ long I’ve been waitin’ to hear someone finally fucked him over stead’a the other way around. Guy’s a right evil bastard, and he moved on to bigger and badder things after Tanglewood.”
“Nice friends you had,” Aiden said, her voice even enough that it wasn’t an insult so much as an observation.
“Yeah, ain’t they?” Danny scowled. “Mac need us for anythin’, Stella?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, glancing back towards the house. “We took a couple alive; we’ll talk to them in the interrogation room.”
“Only a couple?” he blinked.
“Your uncle’s guy,” she said, “is pretty trigger-happy.”
“Ace did time,” Danny said, and didn’t say anything more.
Flack cleared his throat. “Look, Stella, if you or Mac don’t need us, we got suspects to interview over in Queens. I’d like to catch ‘em before noon. I could leave Aiden and Danny with you, I guess –”
“Go ahead,” Stella said. “I’ll have a sweeper team go over the house, you guys take care of your own case. Thanks for coming out, by the way.”
“Sure,” Aiden said. “Any time. Just don’t make it too often, huh?”
“I don’t like getting shot at anymore than you do,” Stella laughed. “Or dealing with press. I’ll try and contain myself.”
“Stella, tell me you’re fucking with me,” Flack said, voice taut with disbelief. Danny glanced up from the computer, loops and whorls and arches spinning in front of his eyes. Aiden was looking up too, chin propped on her fist where it rested on the table. “Stella – Jesus, Stella. Are you all right? Yeah, okay, so maybe that was a dumb question. I’m on my way, ya’ got that? Don’t go anywhere. Yeah, fine, tell Mac I asked about him if that’ll make him happy.” He snapped his phone shut. “You guys won’t believe this,” he said.
“Mac won the lottery,” Aiden said.
“No.” He rolled his eyes. “Ya’ think he’d gamble? He’d pull out the odds, but he won’t pull out his money for one lousy ticket. He and Stella were involved in a shooting over in Staten Island; I gotta get over there. You comin’ along for the ride?”
Danny lept away from the computer. “Hell yeah,” he said. “If I have to look at one more print, I’m gonna scream.”
“You don’t have to look at them,” Aiden pointed out, raising her eyebrows. She got up from her chair, leaning over to hang up her lab coat and grab her jacket. “The computer does all that for you. Benefits of modern technology. Christ, I woulda hated this job back in the’80s.”
“You gotta look at them if they don’t gotta match in AFIS and you’re checkin’ if they got a match to any’a the other prints you lifted,” Danny said. “Trust me, if I ever see this guy’s fingers, I’m not gonna need to print him. I’m gonna know he’s the perp with one good look at his hands.”
Flack and Aiden exchanged amused looks. “Be careful what you wish for, pal,” Flack said. “’member that case with the monastery –”
“– the haunted monastery,” she pointed out gleefully. “Ghosts, ya’ know,” she added in an off-side to Danny.
Flack ground his teeth. “The monastery,” he said again. “Vic chewed off his own hand, yeah?”
Danny blinked. “Okay,” he said. “That’s sick.”
“He was handcuffed to the wall,” Aiden explained. “And it was the only way he could get free –”
“His hand,” Danny repeated disbelievingly. “I mean – jeez, sounds like one’a those urban legends.”
“This is New York,” Flack said. “Whaddaya mean, ‘legends?’”
*
“When you asked if I wanted to go out to breakfast,” Stella said, sipping at her coffee warily, “this was not what I was thinking about.”
Mac gave her a patient look. “What were you thinking about?” he asked, flinching away from the EMT’s gentle hands.
“Detective Taylor –” the paramedic said, sounding frustrated and looking like he wanted to nail Mac to the bottom of the ambulance until he held still. “You’re going to need stitches,” he added, like that would give Mac a reason to sit still.
“It’ll be fine,” Mac said, and the paramedic’s expression said he’d happily strangle Mac. “It’ll get infected, Detective Taylor.”
“Well,” Stella said, “I was expecting indoors. Food.” She raised the styrofoam cup of coffee one of the paramedics had poured out of a thermos. It tasted like bottom of the pot, cold and reheated, and she probably could have stuck her gun in and watched it melt. She was surprised the styrofoam cup was in one piece, although it was probably just a matter of minutes. “Conversation. Not getting shot at, or near. Not having the SWAT team standing by, and not standing around an ambulance with a bunch of paramedics. No offense, Zeke.”
“None taken,” the EMT said. “Detective Taylor, hold still.”
“I’ll tie him down,” Stella offered helpfully. “Mac, listen to the guy with drugs in the back of his car.”
“Stella.”
“What?” Zeke said. “I do have drugs in the back of the van. Do you want me to have to use them on you?” He was a small brown man with dark puppydog eye and black hairs, and his small hands moved with quick, easy efficiency across Mac’s foerhead. “What the hell did you do, Detective Taylor?”
“He hit a coffee table,” Stella said as Mac opened his mouth. “With his head.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was his elbow.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” a sharp voice cracked. Stella glanced up and over towards the gates in front of the driveway, where a pair of uniforms were attempting to bar a seal gray Jaguar from entry. It took her a moment to recognize the man leaning out of the window, and then her mouth twisted in distaste and dislike.
“Look, pal –” one of the uniforms said.
Stella set the coffee carefully down next to Mac. “I’ll handle this,” she called, walking over. “Mr. Constantine,” she said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Constantine stepped out of the car and slammed the door. “Keeping you from arresting another one of my caporegimes,” he said. “And making sure that the Pagliuca don’t randomly show up at my door with a hit squad, blaming me for Astra Pagliuca’s murder.”
“I’ll park on the street,” Carmine d’Alessandro said, pulling out of the driveway. He grinned a moment at Stella, teeth straight and white against his pale skin, then the car vanished behind the hedge/wrought iron fence that surrounded the Pagliuca grounds.
“Why should I arrest Ace Aciello?” Stella asked, crossing her arms. “Is there a good reason I should arrest him?”
D’Alessandro reappeared, adjusting the cut of his leather jacket. “Uh, which one?” he asked.
Stella glared at him. “Come on up,” she said after a moment. “Don’t touch anything, or I’ll shoot you. Just remember I’m a sleep-deprived, PMSing woman with a gun and a pair of handcuffs.”
“I’ll remember that,” Constantine said.
D’Alessandro arched a russet-red eyebrow. “I usually ask for dinner and a date first,” he said to Stella. “At the very least, a drink and a dance.”
“Don’t make me shoot you,” Stella snapped.
“I never make a beautiful woman do anything,” d’Alessandro said. “The sex is always better when they do what they want to do, not what I want to do.”
“Hey, pal,” a familiar voice called. “You know there’s laws against harassment?”
“I could have handled it, Flack,” Stella said, as the three younger detectives strolled up the road behind d’Alessandro. Constantine was already down by Ace and Astra, and she didn’t miss the way Danny’s eyes flicked to him briefly before going back to her.
“C’mon, let me arrest him for insultin’ a lady,” Flack said. “Or a cop,” he added at her warning look. “Please?”
“Nice company you got, Danny,” Carmine said.
“I like it fine,” Danny said quietly. “Least they keep the law, not break it.”
“Constantine keeps the law as much as we break it.”
Danny’s laugh sounded forced. “Yeah,” he said. “You just keep telling yourselves first. Maybe the cops’ll believe it someday.”
“The cops don’t need to believe anything. All they need to do is read the numbers and the news.” D’Alessandro grinned again. “It’s the feds that matter, and they know who’s keeping civilian bodies off the streets.”
“Tell that to the homicide whose pieces I peeled off the sidewalk last week,” Danny snapped. “Tell that to the kids who ain’t ever gonna see their mommas or their dads again because a couple of gangbangers went on joyrides. Yeah, Carmine, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Carmine took a step toward him. “You can tell it to the Mob wives who are going to see their husbands or sons again. You can tell it to the civilians who are alive right now because Constantine has enough scruples not to loose a couple rounds into Times Square for fun, and you can try telling it to the made men who’ve taken bullets in the chest so that they miss some tourist from Texas. Tell them that what Constantine’s doing doesn’t mean anything.”
“Oh,” Danny said. “Yeah. Yeah, that helps a lot. So a dozen Mafioso decide they wanna play good guy, see if the jury looks a little more kindly on them when their trials roll around. Yeah, that really hlps. You know what, Carmine? Fuck you. Fuck you and Val, and fuck Constantine too. I told Val I was done with him twelve years ago, and I haven’t changed my mind since.”
D’Alessandro stared at him for one threatening moment, and Stella felt her breath catch in her throat. He had the look of a very dangerous man who’d just been angered to the point of losing control, and was wavering on the line between sense and senselessness. “That,” he said, “you can try telling Fat Freddy when his hitmen come for you.” He turned and stalked away toward Val.
“Now can I arrest him?” Flack demanded.
“No,” Danny said. “You’re not gonna arrest any’a my uncle’s guys. They can get their own damn asses killed, I don’t want anything to do with them and I don’t want my people to have anything to do with them.”
“That might be a little hard, Danny,” Aiden said.
“I don’t care,” Danny said.
Stella raised her eyebrows. “You mind explaining what that little argument was about?” she asked.
Danny was staring determinedly away toward the Pagliuca house. He blinked and looked back at her when she spoke. “Carmine works for my uncle,” he said.
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
“He’s a nice guy, we just…don’t get along very well.”
“Yeah, evidently,” Aiden snorted. “How’s Mac, Stella? Flack said he got hurt or somethin’ –”
“He hit his head on the coffee table,” Stella said. “The paramedics are stitching him up – or at least they were trying to. I wouldn’t put it past Zeke to knock him out and tie him to a stretcher.”
“What happened?” Flack asked.
She shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, and I was there. Mac got knocked out, there were explosions, Astra Pagliuca was tied up in her room with a homicidal lunatic standing behind her with a cleaver –”
“Wait, Whackjob was here?” Danny said, sounding distracted. “Tell me you got the bastard, Stella.”
“Well, Ace Aciello did,” Stella said. “Fired a couple into his head. Self-defense,” she added.
“Bastard,” Danny said with venom, and didn’t offer an explanation.
“Whackjob?” Flack said. “What, is that a personality description or a –”
“It’s his nickname,” Danny said. “Vincent Patriso gave it to him when we were sixteen we got in a fight in a bar belongs to one’a the Patriso underbosses. Two Pelham boys died, one’a them so badly fucked up they had to identify him using dental records. I think his real name’s Paul, but I’ve never heard anybody use it. Whackjob Cestra, that’s him. NYPD’s got him for at least a dozen homicides, only there’s never been enough evidence to nail him.” He grinned a moment. “You guys got no idea how fuckin’ long I’ve been waitin’ to hear someone finally fucked him over stead’a the other way around. Guy’s a right evil bastard, and he moved on to bigger and badder things after Tanglewood.”
“Nice friends you had,” Aiden said, her voice even enough that it wasn’t an insult so much as an observation.
“Yeah, ain’t they?” Danny scowled. “Mac need us for anythin’, Stella?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, glancing back towards the house. “We took a couple alive; we’ll talk to them in the interrogation room.”
“Only a couple?” he blinked.
“Your uncle’s guy,” she said, “is pretty trigger-happy.”
“Ace did time,” Danny said, and didn’t say anything more.
Flack cleared his throat. “Look, Stella, if you or Mac don’t need us, we got suspects to interview over in Queens. I’d like to catch ‘em before noon. I could leave Aiden and Danny with you, I guess –”
“Go ahead,” Stella said. “I’ll have a sweeper team go over the house, you guys take care of your own case. Thanks for coming out, by the way.”
“Sure,” Aiden said. “Any time. Just don’t make it too often, huh?”
“I don’t like getting shot at anymore than you do,” Stella laughed. “Or dealing with press. I’ll try and contain myself.”
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 01:13 am (UTC)As I said-- the dialogue in all this, I love. And Danny's firing match with Carmine is true, but also has the rhythm of-- not posturing, exactly, but... nor showing off... like... it's like throwing drown, bragging before a fight. You know? There's an edge of that. It's good.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-22 12:55 am (UTC)He's bleeding, and he's going to need stitches, and he's still trying to shy away from Zeke? Idiot. I like Zeke the paramedic. I think I'll keep him. Maybe he can drug Mac into sense. I'd say maybe Mac got hit on the head a little too hard, but he's always been like that,
As I said-- the dialogue in all this, I love. And Danny's firing match with Carmine is true, but also has the rhythm of-- not posturing, exactly, but... nor showing off... like... it's like throwing drown, bragging before a fight. You know? There's an edge of that. It's good.
Carmine's - I think Val and Carmine probably have the most history, which would mean that Carmine is, in some ways, another uncle to Danny. He doesn't have a problem with telling Danny off, or trying to warn him, or the stuff Val might hesitate about or Joey or Ace wouldn't mention. Carmine isn't afraid to lay out the facts, whether or not Danny wants to see them. Danny's trying to pick a fight; Carmine's trying to tell the facts.