The Misfortune Cookie ed-6 Page 5

  “Honor is due, Esther,” Jimmy Legs said as the redheaded cop led him past me and out the door. “You are one fine dame.”

  “She’s about to become a dame with an assault record,” muttered Napoli.

  Looking very sad that he had ever met any of us, Lopez gave a heavy sigh and said, “Esther Diamond, I am placing you under arrest.”

  3

  The Eight Immortals

  These legendary figures embody the various conditions of human life—poverty and wealth, youth and age, male and female. Born human, they achieved immortality through their deeds.

  It turned out that being arrested for assaulting a police officer put me at the pinnacle of the criminal pantheon inside the women’s holding cells. Even Stella ranked below me. I would have thought that laundering money for the mob was a more impressive deed than slapping your former almost-boyfriend. But slugging a cop evidently imbued me with legendary status among the hookers, crack addicts, and shoplifters sharing this illustrious space with me in the wee hours of New Year’s morning.

  Also, I don’t think any of them had the faintest idea what money laundering was, and Stella and I were both too agitated to explain it well.

  I settled into my demoralizing situation—starting off the New Year in jail—by trying to distract myself and use the time productively. In pursuit of my craft, I attempted to study my fellow prisoners, who represented diverse conditions of human existence.

  I was initially interested in the prostitutes, since I had played one recently—a guest role on the cable TV cult hit, The Dirty Thirty—and might play one again someday. But apart from their enthusiasm over my having hit a cop, they just seemed sleepy and bored, providing me with very little material.

  Still trying to be conscientious—and still trying not to think about my immediate future, which I wasn’t ready to face—I focused next on three Ivy League coeds who were also locked up in here tonight. I didn’t know what they were charged with, but the extent of their inebriation suggested several possibilities. They were obviously from wealthy backgrounds, and just as obviously not used to surroundings like this. I decided to observe how these three young women reacted to the gravity of their situation and to being in close quarters with streetwalkers, thieves, addicts, and a furious restaurateur.

  But this was pretty dull, too. One of the girls promptly fell asleep and was snoring away peacefully. Another had vomited twice and was rocking back and forth now with her arms folded over her stomach. And the third one kept hitting on me. As a waitress who’d clobbered a cop in a mob joint, I evidently represented exciting erotic possibilities for a bisexual society girl who was briefly enthralled with the idea of rough trade. After I got tired of telling her to leave me alone, which didn’t work, I yanked so hard on her hair that she retreated sulkily to a corner, glaring at me in resentful silence thereafter.

  Stella was pacing back and forth, muttering to herself, still dressed in her sequined, leopard-print outfit. I thought any random stranger who passed this area would assume she was the hookers’ boss, rather than mine. Compared to all my companions here, I almost looked like a nun in my server’s outfit of white blouse, knee-length black skirt, support hose, and sensible shoes.

  By now, I was sitting hunched over on a wooden bench, my chin in my hands. It had been a couple of hours since I’d been locked up in here with the scum of the earth (I refer, of course, to the privileged young drunks who’d never had to look for work or worry about rent money), and I stared at the floor as I morosely forced myself to confront my situation.

  On the plus side, I would have legal representation. True, my attorney would be a notorious mouthpiece for the mob, but he was very experienced and I wouldn’t have to pay for him. Since I was a friend of the family and had been scooped up in a sweep of the Gambellos, Stella assured me that “the boss” was going to take care of me—which included securing and paying for my counsel. Although I realized that requesting a public defender might better demonstrate law-abiding propriety on my part, I decided I’d prefer to stick with the Shy Don’s lawyer. He routinely kept killers and extortionists out of prison, after all, so I hoped my case would be a cakewalk for him.

  But even with my legal fees covered by Victor Gambello, I was really worried about money. The cops had raided Stella’s at the height of the evening, before the customers, many of whom had been camped at their tables all night, had paid their checks and left. So I had only collected tips from the early crowd, the people who ate dinner and then left Bella Stella to attend festivities elsewhere. Which meant that when Lopez—that bastard!—arrested me and put me in the back of the police van with all the Gambello prisoners, I only had about one-third of the earnings I was counting on for the night. The rest would have rolled in later, around two o’clock in the morning, if the place hadn’t been busted.

  I wondered how long I could last on the quantity of cash that I estimated had been in my server’s pouch at midnight. And when would Bella Stella reopen for business? Not soon, I suspected—not with its owner facing indictment. OCCB wouldn’t have staged such a big bust tonight if they didn’t have a strong case.

  With Bella Stella off the menu, so to speak, I wondered how soon I could get another job—and collect my first earnings from it. In fact, could I get another job, now that I had a recent arrest on my record? What if, despite the Shy Don’s lawyer defending me, this arrest turned into a conviction?

  Damn Lopez.

  If I got out of jail for assaulting him, the first thing I was going to do was kill him. He deserved it.

  “Hey, handsome,” one of the hookers suddenly said in a sultry voice. “You lookin’ for a party?”

  “No, I’m looking for my assailant.”

  My head jerked up the second I recognized Lopez’s voice. I saw him standing outside our cage, looking even more exhausted than he had during the bust, as if he was by now running only on the memory of fumes.

  Serves him right.

  He had replaced his bulletproof vest with a navy blue pullover sweater. I resented this, since that was a good color for him. It brought out the blue of his eyes, flattered his olive complexion, and made his coal-black hair look even darker. The fact that it was a ratty-looking old wool sweater with unraveling cuffs didn’t seem to mute its effect on me.

  I had a sudden, unbidden memory of clumsily helping him pull a different sweater over his head exactly a week ago. It fell to the floor of my apartment, quickly followed by the rest of his clothes—which he was frantically shedding as we clung and kissed and embraced, feverish and uninhibited with each other, his ravenous mouth on mine, his hands all over my naked body . . .

  I sat bolt upright and started choking on a sort of shocked hiccup, appalled by where my thoughts had just wandered based on one quick look at the tired, shabbily-dressed cop who had arrested me tonight.

  “Are you all right, Esther?” he asked.

  Our gazes locked. I swallowed, cleared my throat, and composed myself.

  “What do you want, detective?” I asked coldly.

  “Oh, I get it,” said the hooker who had greeted him. “You’re the cop she decked?”

  “I’m the one,” Lopez said wearily.

  Most of my fellow prisoners perked up, looking at him with interest now.

  “Oooh, honey,” the same woman said to Lopez. “What ever did you do to make her wanna wallop such a pretty face?”

  “He slept with me and then never called,” I said tersely, rising from my bench.

  “Seriously?” She looked at Lopez with a much less flattering expression now. “That is so tacky!”

  “I think there are still some people in the tri-state area who haven’t heard,” Lopez said to me. “Do you want to alert the media? It would save time.”

  “God, men are all the same,” said another of the prostitutes. “Don’t you just hate them?”

  “You’re a bum!” Stella told Lopez.

  “I’m going to be sick!” said the drunk coed with the weak stomach.r />
  “Again?”

  We all took a few steps back.

  She burped, then said, “Never mind. False alarm.”

  The society girl who’d been hitting on me earlier stood up, pointed at me, and said to Lopez, “She assaulted me, too! I want to press charges. Against her and against the department—for putting this animal in here with me!”

  “What did you do now?” Lopez asked me.

  “I defended my virtue,” I said crankily.

  He lifted a brow. “Surely it’s a little late for that?”

  “Oh, don’t you dare—”

  “Kidding,” he said. “Kidding.”

  “You are in no position to kid me,” I reminded him.

  “I guess not,” he admitted.

  “Where’s my lawyer?” Stella asked, seething with impatience. “Isn’t he here yet?”

  “Yeah, he got here about twenty minutes ago. He’s meeting first with Ronnie and Jimmy and Tommy and . . . oh, all the rest of them,” Lopez replied. “He’ll see you after he’s done with them.”

  “How long will that take?” she demanded.

  “I’m guessing you could make a dent in War and Peace while you’re waiting.”

  “I ain’t got all night!”

  “Actually, you do,” Lopez pointed out.

  “Why, you rotten, lousy, stinking—”

  “Hey, I’m not the guy who sent only one lawyer here to represent all of you,” he said. “Take it up with Victor Gambello if you’re not happy.”

  “Hmph.”

  Turning away from Stella, Lopez nodded to the uniformed policewoman who stood nearby. She unlocked our cell as he said, “Come on, Esther. Let’s go.”

  “Huh?”

  As the cell door opened, Stella stepped protectively in front of me and eyed Lopez. “Where are you taking her?”

  “Relax, Stella. We’re letting her go.”

  “You are?” I said in surprise.

  “Yeah.” He gestured for me to exit the cell. “Come on.”

  I looked doubtfully at Stella, not wanting to leave her here. When she realized why I was hesitating, she shook her head and patted my arm. “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’ll be outta here pronto. I just gotta wait for my lawyer.”

  “And for a judge,” Lopez said.

  “Oh, shit,” she said in disgust. “I forgot. It’s New Year’s Day.”

  Stella sighed, rolled her eyes, and sat down on a bench, settling in for a long wait. I asked if she wanted me to bring anything here for her, now that I was evidently being set free; but she said her assistant was taking care of that. So I gave her a quick hug, wished the other inmates the best of luck with the legal system, and exited my cell.

  I felt a rush of relief as I followed Lopez down the hall and left the holding area. I was out of there! And apparently not going to appear before a judge, after all, let alone face being convicted of assaulting a police officer.

  Lopez didn’t stop walking until we reached the window where I could reclaim my possessions from the NYPD. He gave them my name and verified my release.

  A moment later, a man appeared at the end of the hall. “Has anybody seen—Oh, there he is. Lopez!”

  As my companion turned to look at him, I recognized the redheaded cop who’d participated in the bust at Bella Stella.

  He recognized me, too. His face split in a grin. “Miss Diamond! Delighted see you again.”

  I shrewdly sensed that the wiseguys weren’t the only people who’d found certain events at the restaurant vastly amusing.

  Lopez asked him, “What do you want?”

  “We need to finish the—”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Lopez replied. “I just need to wrap this up.”

  “Do you need any . . . Oh, right. Never mind.” The cop grinned again. “I just love a happy ending.” He was chuckling as he turned and went back the way he had come.

  “God, will this shift never end?” Lopez muttered in despair.

  I searched my soul for some compassion but didn’t find any. Go figure.

  While we waited for someone to retrieve my stuff, I asked him, “What’s going to happen to Stella?”

  “In the long run, we’ll see,” he said. “Meanwhile, she’s right—she’ll be released on bail after she’s arraigned.”

  “What about the restaurant?”

  “It won’t be reopening for a while, Esther.” It was clear from his tone that he knew this was bad news for me. “Maybe not ever—not as Stella’s place, anyhow.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t surprised, but my heart sank, even so.

  He was avoiding my eyes as he said, “You’ll have to find another job.”

  “Uh-huh.” After a moment I asked, “Am I all done here? I mean, what happened to my arrest for . . . ? You know.” I made an awkward gesture indicating the cheek I had slapped.

  “We’re dropping the charges.”

  “Good!” I said with relief. Then: “Um, why? Napoli seemed to think that hanging would be too good for me.”

  “I screwed up the arrest,” said Lopez, looking through the clerk’s window to check on progress. “This could take a few minutes. They’re understaffed tonight.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, you screwed it up?”

  “Oh, I charged you with the wrong thing.” He sounded as tired as he looked. “I didn’t read you your rights. I filled out the report wrong. And so on.”

  I hadn’t even noticed any of this. I’d been too upset to be aware of the whole ordeal as anything other than a surreal nightmare.

  Lopez added, “I thought about sexually harassing you in front of witnesses, but that seemed like overkill. And I’ll have enough explaining to do, as it is.”

  I stared at him as I realized what he was saying. “You mean you screwed up on purpose?”

  “Of course it was on purpose,” he said a little testily. “Although you might not believe it, based on tonight, I’m not actually a raging incompetent.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you screw up?”

  Now he was annoyed. “Because seeing you at the restaurant—where you weren’t supposed to be, Esther—right in the middle of my bust . . . Well, it threw me off my game. I got rattled. And then you and I devolved into some kind of insane tabloid brawl. Which I still don’t really know how . . . Wait. No. I swore I wouldn’t go there again. Not here and now.” Lopez took a deep breath and regrouped. “I’m just saying, I’m normally a lot better at my job than that.”

  “Um, no, I meant, why did you screw up my arrest?”

  “Oh.” He blinked. “That?”

  “Yes,” I said, clinging to my patience. “That.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face before answering, as if trying to wake himself up. “Well, I saw there was no way Napoli would let you go. Not in those circumstances. He was going to bring you in tonight, no matter what.” Lopez shrugged. “So I made sure that we can’t keep you.”

  Now I thought I understood. “By handling this so sloppily that you have to drop the charges?”

  He nodded. “You’d have to be a much more important collar for the prosecutor to stick with this and try to press charges after the mess I’ve made of your arrest. So we’re cutting you loose.”

  I remembered Napoli’s comments in the restaurant when Lopez decided to take over arresting me. “Detective Charm knew you were going to do this, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” He looked through the window again. “Oh, good, they’ve got your stuff.”

  “I don’t get it. Napoli is such a jerk. Why—”

  “He’s not the easiest guy in the world to get along with,” Lopez admitted, “but he’s a good cop, and he’s fair. We’ve learned how to work with each other. Though you probably couldn’t tell, based on tonight’s performance.”

  “But he can’t stand me,” I said. “So why did he let you go ahead and do this?”

  “Because it’s a fair compromise all around,” Lopez said dryly. “You go
t to slap me, which Napoli thought I deserved. He got to make his point in front of the Gambellos about hitting a cop. And me . . . well, I guess I won’t have to explain to anyone why you’ve got a criminal record.” As he handed my stuff to me, he concluded, “See? Everyone walks away a winner.”

  “Some victory,” I muttered. “No money, no job . . .” No boyfriend.

  “You’ll find another job,” he said firmly. “You can do better than a mob joint that’s full of wiseguys hitting on you.”

  “I liked it there,” I said grumpily.

  His shoulders slumped. “I know.” His voice was soft, and he was avoiding my eyes again.

  “So I guess this thing happened because of the way OCCB has been putting the Gambellos under a microscope ever since the Fenster heists first hit the news?” I said.

  Lopez nodded, then said, “Now check to make sure this is everything that you had with you when you were brought in, then sign for it.”

  “Miss Diamond,” said the clerk. “Here’s the rest of your belongings.”

  “The rest?” I said with a puzzled frown. My server’s pouch was the only possession I’d been arrested with (and as far as I could tell, all the cash was still inside it). Then I saw what he was handing over to Lopez. “Oh! Well, that’s good, at least.”

  It turned out that shortly after I was arrested, it had occurred to Ned to get my daypack and my coat from the staff room and give them to the cops, so I could be reunited with these things upon eventually being released. Lopez set my daypack on the floor and held my coat slung over one arm while telling me this. I was relieved, since this meant I wouldn’t have to go back to Little Italy and try to convince the cops to let me into the restaurant so I could remove my stuff.

  It also meant I had the keys to my apartment now, so I could go straight home and collapse. I suddenly realized how exhausted I was. Without thinking, I grabbed Lopez’s wrist and looked at his watch. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning.