from his mouth.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Karp greeted them. “Clay, you’re looking good for someone I assume was up all night.” The big black detective still looked like the college football star he’d once been other than the slightly receding, and graying, hairline on his melon-sized head.
“Thanks, boss,” Fulton replied. “And you got that straight.”
Turning to his other friend, Karp said, “Guma, well, you don’t look much worse than normal.”
All three men laughed but it wasn’t that long ago that such a remark wasn’t such a joke. The once-muscular and spry Guma had been reduced by cancer to a white-haired shell of a man with an old man’s body and lines of pain permanently etched into his face. However, his mind and, at least according to his own accounts, libido were in fine shape.
“Very funny,” Guma said. “I didn’t see you up at two a.m. taking statements from Vitteli and Co. I had to go home and take a hot shower with Mrs. Milquetost just to get the smell off. Charlie was bad enough with the big fake alligator tears. But that Barros character is bad news; he didn’t even pretend to be upset.”
Trying not to let the image of Guma and his receptionist in a shower together disturb his train of thought too much, Karp settled in behind his desk and got out a yellow legal pad so he could take notes. “So what do we got?”
Fulton tilted his head to the side and twisted his mouth before answering. “First glance, looks like a pretty straight-up robbery. Two bad guys on foot and another in a getaway car. Carlotta apparently went for his gun and one of the guys blasted him. They took off with wallets and watches.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Yeah,” Fulton said. “Vitteli, Barros, and Jackie Corcione, the union attorney and son of the founder, were all there. Apparently there’d been some sort of meeting to patch things up between them regarding the election. They were walking to their cars when it went down.”
“How convenient,” Karp said. “I guess we know what their alibis will be.”
“Yeah, pretty airtight,” Fulton replied, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, they were just getting ready to move the body when I got there. I talked to the officers and detectives on scene. Goom handledthe witness statements and we’ve been all over the reports. I agree with my main man here, something stinks, but we got nothing right now to prove it.”
“Anybody else see anything?” Karp asked.
“Carlotta’s driver, a guy named Randy McMahon,” Fulton said. “He’d been sent to get the car and was just driving back when he saw it go down. But it was dark, and he didn’t know what he was looking at. Saw flashes from the gun and two guys running across the street to the getaway car.”
“He get a license plate number?”
“No. Just a description: older model, four-door American sedan. Gray primer on the trunk.”
Karp made a few notes on his pad, then looked at Guma. “What did you do after you left the scene?”
“I went to talk to some of my people who know what’s going on down at the docks,” he replied.
“And?”
“And it’s no secret there was no love lost between Carlotta and Vitteli, especially after Leo Corcione died,” Guma replied. “There was a power struggle, and the union had an election a year ago to decide it. Got pretty ugly. Lot of charges flying around, particularly from Carlotta’s side after Vitteli won.”
“Any rumors about the shooting from your gangster friends?”
Guma smiled and shrugged. “There’s always plenty of rumors. Mob guys like to gossip more than little old ladies. But it’s too early to say what’s real and not, even for wiseguys with ears to the streets. However, no one I talked to was buying the ‘robbery’ charade. Also, I found this interesting; the Italians are a little nervous about one of the Russian gangs nosing around the docks. But no one knows if there’s a connection to this.”
Karp looked at Fulton.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Karp greeted them. “Clay, you’re looking good for someone I assume was up all night.” The big black detective still looked like the college football star he’d once been other than the slightly receding, and graying, hairline on his melon-sized head.
“Thanks, boss,” Fulton replied. “And you got that straight.”
Turning to his other friend, Karp said, “Guma, well, you don’t look much worse than normal.”
All three men laughed but it wasn’t that long ago that such a remark wasn’t such a joke. The once-muscular and spry Guma had been reduced by cancer to a white-haired shell of a man with an old man’s body and lines of pain permanently etched into his face. However, his mind and, at least according to his own accounts, libido were in fine shape.
“Very funny,” Guma said. “I didn’t see you up at two a.m. taking statements from Vitteli and Co. I had to go home and take a hot shower with Mrs. Milquetost just to get the smell off. Charlie was bad enough with the big fake alligator tears. But that Barros character is bad news; he didn’t even pretend to be upset.”
Trying not to let the image of Guma and his receptionist in a shower together disturb his train of thought too much, Karp settled in behind his desk and got out a yellow legal pad so he could take notes. “So what do we got?”
Fulton tilted his head to the side and twisted his mouth before answering. “First glance, looks like a pretty straight-up robbery. Two bad guys on foot and another in a getaway car. Carlotta apparently went for his gun and one of the guys blasted him. They took off with wallets and watches.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Yeah,” Fulton said. “Vitteli, Barros, and Jackie Corcione, the union attorney and son of the founder, were all there. Apparently there’d been some sort of meeting to patch things up between them regarding the election. They were walking to their cars when it went down.”
“How convenient,” Karp said. “I guess we know what their alibis will be.”
“Yeah, pretty airtight,” Fulton replied, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, they were just getting ready to move the body when I got there. I talked to the officers and detectives on scene. Goom handledthe witness statements and we’ve been all over the reports. I agree with my main man here, something stinks, but we got nothing right now to prove it.”
“Anybody else see anything?” Karp asked.
“Carlotta’s driver, a guy named Randy McMahon,” Fulton said. “He’d been sent to get the car and was just driving back when he saw it go down. But it was dark, and he didn’t know what he was looking at. Saw flashes from the gun and two guys running across the street to the getaway car.”
“He get a license plate number?”
“No. Just a description: older model, four-door American sedan. Gray primer on the trunk.”
Karp made a few notes on his pad, then looked at Guma. “What did you do after you left the scene?”
“I went to talk to some of my people who know what’s going on down at the docks,” he replied.
“And?”
“And it’s no secret there was no love lost between Carlotta and Vitteli, especially after Leo Corcione died,” Guma replied. “There was a power struggle, and the union had an election a year ago to decide it. Got pretty ugly. Lot of charges flying around, particularly from Carlotta’s side after Vitteli won.”
“Any rumors about the shooting from your gangster friends?”
Guma smiled and shrugged. “There’s always plenty of rumors. Mob guys like to gossip more than little old ladies. But it’s too early to say what’s real and not, even for wiseguys with ears to the streets. However, no one I talked to was buying the ‘robbery’ charade. Also, I found this interesting; the Italians are a little nervous about one of the Russian gangs nosing around the docks. But no one knows if there’s a connection to this.”
Karp looked at Fulton.
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