Fanatics Read online

  The courtroom surroundings, otherwise so ordinary for Flo Ott, on this occasion felt bizarre. Not the bewildering news and the absurd allegations, not the no-holds-barred procedural tactics Golden Bobby promised, but this. Detective Lieutenant Flo Ott, officer of the law, willing to act as a character witness for a criminal defendant. She might not have to say a word today, probably wouldn’t even be asked, not at a rearraignment. But Flo’s silent presence alone, seated with the defendant’s team, spoke volumes. The judge and every assistant district attorney in the courtroom recognized and respected the homicide detective lieutenant.

  Patrolmen Magee and Dente certainly knew exactly who she was, and they were less than pleased to see Flo pulling up a chair at the defendant’s side, next to Keating, the criminal defense bar’s bright, shining dazzler and a royal pain in the ass.

  Almost a half hour after the scheduled time on the docket, the clerk called Annie Agron’s case. Golden Bobby set aside his documents with a phlegmatic sigh and rose to face Judge Lydia Compton.

  The judge said, “Are there any objections to starting now?”

  Golden Bobby shook his head. “Absolutely not. Not as far as we’re concerned.”

  The young assistant district attorney, an Indian American woman named Uusha Chandra Roy, walked to the middle of the floor in front of the judge’s bench. She was younger than any other lawyer in the room, a thin woman with a firm, confidently set expression that was belied by a mere shadow of hesitation in her dark eyes.

  The judge addressed her: “Would the prosecution please restate the facts of this case?”

  “The People maintain that Annunziata ‘Annie’ Agron, on a Saturday morning, committed an armed robbery outside the ATM cash point on the corner of Seventh Avenue and President Street in Park Slope, Kings County. The victim was a seventy-eight-year-old woman in a motorized wheelchair who’d just withdrawn three hundred dollars. Patrolmen William Magee and Antonio Dente attempted to arrest Ms. Agron at the scene of the robbery and met with resistance. And so she is also guilty of assaulting a policeman in the course of his duty and resisting a lawful arrest.”

  “And counsel for the defense says?”

  “Not guilty. Not guilty in a million light-years. This is a Keystone—if you’ll pardon the expression—Kops blunder of incredible proportions. Truly mythic, Your Honor.” Golden Bobby turned to the patrolmen and said, “You have my sympathies, Officers, you really do, arresting someone as innocent as…well, let’s just say, as innocent as a vanilla ice cream cone.” Everyone appeared to ponder the exact implication of this unusual image. “The charges should be dismissed, Your Honor.”

  Judge Lydia Compton was a portrait of patience and forbearance. “Okay, this time let’s just try to flesh out the outline of the arrest, of the allegations and charges. Let’s clarify all the details of exactly what happened.”

  Assistant District Attorney Uusha Chandra Roy proceeded to pursue her presentation to its conclusion, unruffled, in spite of repeated headshaking, audible sighs, and occasional suppressed laughs from her opposing counsel, defense attorney Golden Bobby.

  Briefly, the prosecution’s case was a factual narrative without embroidery. Shortly after eleven a.m. Annunziata “Annie” Agron approached an ATM to withdraw cash, she claimed, to finish her Saturday morning shopping on Seventh Avenue. As she was going up to the cash point machine, the bank customer preceding her, Sadie Sienkiewicz, a seventy-eight-year-old arthritis sufferer in a motorized wheelchair, was attempting to pass by Ms. Agron on her way back onto the sidewalk, when she was held up by Ms. Agron, who was wielding a carving knife. Sadie Sienkiewicz, fearing for her life, gave Ms. Agron all the cash she’d just withdrawn for her Saturday morning shopping, three hundred dollars. Before Ms. Agron had a chance to flee the scene of her crime, an observant bystander waved to a police cruiser that was double-parked just across the street on the other side of Seventh Avenue, where Officer Dente had entered a Chinese take-out place, Madame Chang’s, to pick up lunch for himself and his squad car partner, patrolman William Magee. Officer Dente was carrying two spring rolls, a pint of General Hsu lamb, a pint of sweet-and-sour chicken and shrimp, and a pint of steamed rice, as he was leaving Madame Chang’s, and he observed his partner, patrolman Magee, approaching the altercation taking place outside the ATM point directly across Seventh Avenue. The patrolmen disarmed Ms. Agron and retrieved the cash, most of which was scattered over the sidewalk. As they were arresting Ms. Agron, she put up a violent resistance, inflicting damage on both patrolmen.

  Golden Bobby shook his head. “I have a few questions, Your Honor, for patrolmen Magee and Dente. I may proceed, with the assistant DA’s consent, I trust?”

  ADA Uusha Chandra Roy nodded.

  And the judge said, “Counselor, please proceed.”

  Golden Bobby took a deep breath and said, “At what point did you surmise that this event was, shall we say, a stickup?”

  Patrolman Magee said, “As soon as I saw the money flying around, sir, I got out of the car and went across to the corner. That’s when I saw this knife she had.”

  “Who had?”

  “Annunziata Agron. Your client.”

  “Can you describe the knife?”

  “One of those big kitchen knives, sir. A really big one, the kind you carve up turkeys and roast beef with.”

  “New or old?”

  Patrolman Magee paused. Then: “New.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “It was wrapped up.”

  “Wrapped up in what?”

  “A package.”

  “Describe the package.”

  Patrolman Magee looked down at the floor. “Like the kind you get in a store.”

  Golden Bobby smiled. “You mean, unopened and all enclosed in plastic bubble wrap?”

  As a wave of laughter swept over the courtroom, patrolman Magee, his eyes still fixed on the floor, fell silent and nodded.

  “And what,” Golden Bobby said softly, “did Sadie Sienkiewicz say about all this?”

  “She said this other lady, Annunziata Agron, pulled the knife on her.”

  “All wrapped up?”

  Falling silent again, patrolman Magee nodded.

  “And when,” Golden Bobby said, “did she pull the knife—before or after she spoke to Sadie Sienkiewicz?”

  Patrolman Magee sighed. Then: “After Sadie Sienkiewicz ran into Annunziata Agron with her wheelchair. It was her new chair, sir, and she had trouble driving it. Agron shouted and dropped her ice cream cone on Sadie Sienkiewicz’s head. Sadie Sienkiewicz was terrified and gave her a push, to protect herself, and she saw this huge knife come out of a shopping bag. Agron dropped her stuff, and Agron was picking the knife up from the ground there, and saying something, and Sadie Sienkiewicz was really terrified by this point, so she figured she’d better give her attacker the money before she got stabbed. She threw the bills at her attacker and the money was blowing all around when I got there.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “The old lady was screaming, ‘She took my money, she took my money!’ So I got her money back for her, sir.”

  The judge shook her head but said nothing as she motioned to defense counsel to continue his questioning of the police officers.

  “And Officer Dente,” Golden Bobby said, “is that when you arrived?”

  “Yes,” said Officer Dente.

  “And what did you do?”

  “I saw this knife in the attacker’s hand. I saw that poor old lady in a wheelchair and this white stuff all over her, like she got sprayed with something in the attack. So right away, I was on her attacker like a ton of bricks.”

  “A ton of bricks,” said Golden Bobby. “An accurate, if unfortunate, image, Officer Dente, since you’re even taller, if not quite as round as I am. Ms. Agron is, what, maybe five foot three, five four. And what did she do, when she got hit by a ton of bricks?”

  “She threw up her hands. She called me a bully. And when she threw up her hands, the kni
fe and stuff went flying, and she hit the bag with our lunch, and she got the food all over us, me and my partner. Rice, chicken, everything. We had to get our uniforms dry-cleaned.”

  Golden Bobby smiled sympathetically. “Not cheap, dry cleaning, not these days. And what did you pay Madame Chang for that lunch? Exactly how large a bill did you hand over to her?”

  Officer Dente paused, and his eyes scanned the ceiling as though the answer might lie up there somewhere. “I don’t recall,” he finally said. “Not exactly.”

  “Madame Chang isn’t here,” Golden Bobby said. “But if we ever do get to trial—which I trust we won’t—Madame Chang will be called. I’ve spoken with her. She observed, albeit from a distance, much of what happened. Now, do you remember what size bill you gave her? The exact amount, Officer Dente? We’re down on our knees, begging you, please, Officer Dente, because she remembers.”

  Officer Dente scanned the ceiling again. Then: “A dollar. I think…I gave her a dollar.”

  “For all that food?”

  “I think maybe she still owed us some change from the last time. So I guess that’s all she asked for.”

  “I see. And what happened to Ms. Agron? Say, after the ton of bricks and so forth.”

  “We escorted her to the squad car.”

  “Patrolman Magee, were you at the wheel again?”

  “Always, sir, that’s my spot.”

  Golden Bobby nodded as if in approval. “And Officer Dente?”

  “He was in back, sir, with the prisoner.”

  “Any problems back there?”

  “She was crying a lot, sir, the prisoner was. Making a real racket.”

  “What did you do?”

  “My job, sir. I kept on driving.”

  “And Officer Dente?”

  “He was trying to get the handcuffs on her.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  The police officer didn’t answer.

  “C’mon,” Golden Bobby said. “Silence is no answer here. And it wasn’t back then. You’re doing yourself no favors now.”

  “Yeah, well, I said, ‘Tony, lay off her. Tony, she don’t need no cuffs.’ ”

  “Why not?”

  Patrolman Magee looked surprised by this question. “You can see she’s just half his size, sir. And she wasn’t putting up no fight. Just bawling her eyes out.”

  “That’s it? And you didn’t say anything else? C’mon, no margin here in silence now, not for you.”

  Magee stayed mute for a moment. Then: “I said, ‘Tony, lay off.’ ”

  “Lay off?”

  Mute, again.

  Exasperated, Golden Bobby said, “Lookit, we can’t let silence pass for an answer here. It’s unacceptable. Otherwise this goes to trial, where you’re under oath and this is getting lots more attention. Not many get a chance like you’re getting here and for good reason. We can make it all go away now, but only if you speak up.”

  “I said…‘Tony, stop hitting her, okay?’ ”

  Golden Bobby turned to face the prosecutor. “Would the assistant district attorney care to question the arresting officers now? Or can the charges be withdrawn at once?”

  Although voicing his request gently, almost humbly, Golden Bobby radiated immense self-confidence and an intense interest in ADA Uusha Chandra Roy’s reply.

  Judge Lydia Compton shook her head. “That’s it, I can’t see a case here. Not against the accused anyway.”

  ADA Uusha Chandra Roy stood erect and replied firmly, “The charges are withdrawn, and the People request leave to preserve a right of reconsideration should further facts materialize.”

  Judge Lydia Compton glanced at Robert J. Keating, Esq. Golden Bobby shrugged. Why not…be gracious about it, let a young assistant district attorney save face, no margin in rubbing her nose in a mess the cops made. It wasn’t her fault, and there was precious little likelihood they’d be seeing this case again anyway. The assistant district attorney’s request was pro forma, as was the judge’s response.

  “Request granted.”

  What total bullshit, Flo Ott thought, what an unnecessary, pathetic performance by two worthless cops, who were a disgrace to the uniform, a blight on the force. But it happened too often, and Flo knew it well: the baboon Magee and bullyboy Dente weren’t unique, and Flo Ott was nobody’s fool. Still, she felt grateful for the small consolation that these two clowns were unlikely ever to make it beyond patrolman grade, and certainly never up into an elite unit like homicide, not without a political sponsor at least as dumb as they were. Flo hoped she’d never have to see them again, but, as it would develop within days and, to her great shock, her hope proved futile.

  2:57 P.M.

  Outside in the corridor, Golden Bobby placed his ring-heavy hand on Flo’s shoulder.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said. “In front of you, they couldn’t snow-job. They won’t drag this clinker out again.” Golden Bobby looked thoughtfully at his client, Annie Agron, who was struggling to keep back the tears while holding tightly on to Betty Fitzgerald’s hand. “Someday,” Golden Bobby said, “maybe not soon, but someday we’ll all look back on this absurdity and enjoy a good laugh.”

  Rising on tiptoes, Annie Agron kissed Golden Bobby’s cheek. “I can’t even describe,” she said, “what it’s like to have an angel sweep down and hold your hand and tell you, ‘I’m not letting go until you’re safe.’ That’s you, you’re an angel. Thank you.”

  As far as Flo Ott could see, the ridiculous case was now closed, just another bad memory.

  3:04 P.M.

  Flo left her relieved tenants and Golden Bobby in the courthouse hall and walked back to her office, her thoughts fixated again on an absurdity that possessed no possibility of laughter at any time.

  When it came to assassinations, Flo Ott was unable to detect even a scintilla of humor. To the censoring mechanism in her investigator’s brain, not a trace, not a hint, not a moment’s comic relief could be wrung from the horrors of fanaticism. In her mind—the mind that now had to meld with the minds of snakes—Flo returned to considering what an assassin had to do to murder a senator-elect.

  And to escape, and to remain forever free.

  What was the precise step-by-step approach to killing a man, whose only protection for the next eight weeks would never be more than a few city cops.

  Flo Ott’s conclusion was, again, that for these professional fanatics, assassination and escape weren’t impossible, and not as hard as her job to prevent the nightmare from ever happening.

  Celebrity

  3:22 P.M.

  Over a second cup of coffee, Flo Ott was reading the online New York Times.

  No mention yet about threats to Senator-elect Cecil King’s life. The lid was still on that one. At the other end of the scale, Owen Smith/Ballz Busta received a lead piece on the front page and more in the regional section.

  The Post’s online front page blared, “Ballz Busta Skull Busted.”

  Flo drummed her fingers on the desk. She examined her coffee mug with a Marine Corps insignia and a chip in the rim and a brown crack down to the handle. The mug had been around for almost the duration of her marriage to USMC Captain (Retired) Eddie Ott, the wounded and paralyzed veteran confined to a hospital bed out in a Sheepshead Bay nursing home for the rest of his life, the husband she visited and fed and joked with every day she possibly could.

  At five o’clock, Flo was due at Cecil King’s office to detail security planning for the next eight weeks.

  Frank Murphy called. “His family, Flo, they’re totally upset. They’re blaming the city for too little protection.”

  “I’m on my way to Cecil’s soon. With something like a plan.”

  “No, no. The rap guy’s family. You’ll talk to them? It’s better you do it, Flo, they need a woman’s touch. I’ll catch you later at Cecil’s.”

  3:56 P.M.

  The Owen Smith family residence was a brownstone house on Montgomery Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a few steps
from Prospect Park West and the forsythia hedges and autumnal trees inside the park.

  The Smith townhouse, at four stories, six bedrooms, six baths, a finished basement, custom recording studio, and servants’ quarters, was anybody’s idea of a mansion. And all the nineteenth-century details were intact. Only the stoop looked new, or at least one side of it did. Years before, a drunk driver had careened around the corner, smacked into the stone stoop and sheared off a wall. The replacement never matched the brownstone shade of the other wall, one side dark, the other light. For decades, the mansion had belonged to a local politician, an Irishman and his large brood.

  Flo Ott mounted the stoop and rang the bell to the Smith family home, fifteen blocks and a world away from Celestina Belle’s white-on-white luxury loft in the factory on Twelfth Street. But only a few blocks from Cecil King’s apartment, a discomfiting reminder of where Flo would much prefer to be on guard to prevent a killing.

  The front door to the brownstone townhouse opened, and there stood a tall man nearly as round as he was high, his head shaven, his eyes amused, African Buddha Robert J. Keating, Esq., his profundo voice more basso than ever.

  “Lieutenant Ott, we’ve been expecting someone, and I’m so glad it’s you.”

  “Bobby, you’re ubiquitous.”

  “Well, I’m Mrs. Smith’s lawyer, too. So won’t you step into the parlor? She’ll be right down. As will her mother, Mrs. Delucia. This is a tragic moment for the entire Smith family.”

  Golden Bobby, in keeping with the mournful occasion, did not reveal his sparkling smile this time.

  The parlor was off the main hall, a cozy room of polished woodwork and beveled glass, chintz upholstery, and a large oriental carpet. Several crystal vases held sprays of fresh lilies. The room had the air of a high-end funeral parlor.

  A moment later, the widow, Christine Smith, entered the parlor, her mother at her heels. The widow, a trim, self-confident-looking woman, was wearing a black shantung silk blouse over well-tailored black cashmere slacks. Her mother, who more closely matched Golden Bobby’s size, though dressed similarly to her daughter, was an overstuffed, dusty woman with the scrappy features of an ex-prizefighter and a faint mustache, her eyes grown sluggish with age even while continually disapproving. The focus for her disapproval shifted from place to place, always returning, unsurprisingly, to eye the detective rather strongly.