Piece of the Action by Stephen Solomita Read Free Book Online

eyes, it made him instantly recognizable, even from a distance, whenever he was out of uniform.
    Pat Cohan was just about to return to his guests when someone knocked softly on the closed bedroom door. The door opened before he had a chance to offer an invitation and Detective Lieutenant Salvatore Patero entered. Patero, Cohan noted, was wearing his customary white, two-button cardigan, a duplicate of the cardigans Bing Crosby wore on the golf course. Pat Cohan, who’d seen many similar sweaters on Salvatore Patero’s back, felt that putting a guinea into the Crooner’s cardigan was like putting the vestments of a Cardinal on a gibbering ape.
    “Salvatore, my boy,” Pat Cohan said quietly, “it’s not polite to barge into another man’s bedroom.”
    Patero’s thick, dark eyebrows shot up in wonder. The gesture was habitual and every bit as conscious as Pat Cohan’s hearty Irish handshake. “I knocked, didn’t I? I mean, your wife’s in the other room, Pat.”
    Cohan sighed and let the matter drop. The guineas were coming into the Department in larger and larger numbers. You had to make a place for them, but that didn’t mean they were civilized. Civility would take another generation to master. At least.
    “Let’s hear the news, boyo. And would you try to make it good news. We’re celebratin’ my daughter’s engagement tonight.”
    Everything about Salvatore Patero was sharp, from his chin to his chiseled Roman nose to his wiry hair. Even his slim, muscular body was all knees and elbows. Patero didn’t particularly like cops. He didn’t like being a cop, but “like” just wasn’t part of the deal for kids from large families. Not when it came to choosing a profession. Patero had first gone out to work when he was eleven years old, carrying milk, eggs and butter from a horse-drawn cart to the doorsteps of Brooklyn housewives. He certainly liked being a cop better than that.
    “I spoke to Accacio. I told him exactly what you said.”
    “Which was what, Sal?”
    Patero held his temper. Maybe, one glorious day in the future, the pompous Irish assholes who ruled the Department would be driven out, but he’d be long retired before it happened. “I told him how unhappy the Department was about what happened at the whorehouse. I told him I didn’t know if we should protect a guy who can’t take care of his own business, who hires amateurs instead of professionals. I told him it’s not nineteen twenty-five anymore. Civilians ain’t supposed to get hurt, much less dead. You got a problem, put it in a Jersey swamp where it belongs.”
    “I’ll bet he loved hearing that. ”
    “He didn’t react much. I mean he didn’t seem frightened or anything. He told me the thing at the O’Neills’ was an accident. He said if there was any heat coming down, he’d cut off the links between his people and the event.”
    “The lad is takin’ steps to protect himself,” Cohan interrupted. “How nice. Does he think we’re worried about him ?”
    Patero threw his palms up in the air and shrugged his shoulders. “What could I say, Pat? It’s the practical thing to do. I mean, I know you can handle your end, but there’s pressure comin’ down from the precinct.”
    “From exactly who in the precinct? I’ve already spoken to the captain and he assured me …”
    “We’re talkin’ about a homicide, Pat, not about gambling and whores. It’s not a thing a detective can ignore.”
    “Be serious, boyo. Dead Puerto Ricans are as expendable as you guineas were forty years ago. Tell our friend Accacio that he needn’t fear the Seventh Precinct. He should be afraid of me. ”
    “That’s what I told him.” Patero absorbed the remark about “you guineas.” It was the price he had to pay and he knew it. “Look, Pat, I just wanna go on the record about this. We’re not doing the right thing, here. I’m not saying we should go out and bust Steppy Accacio. But I am saying we should let the investigation take