Fourth Victim Read Free

twenty-three stops.”
    “So, you heard about Rusty Monaco, huh?” “I heard.”
    “I knew him,” Healy said.
    “You did?” “Yeah.”
    Joe shook his head. “Internal Affairs detective knows you, that can’t be a good sign.” “I knew
you.”
    “Yeah, and you ruined my career.”
    “That was your loyalty to Ralph Abruzzi that did that, remember? I just came around with the broom and dust pan to sweep up what was left.”
    They let that hang in the air between them like a balloon filled with poison gas. This was the first time since Joe had been in the hospital recovering from his leg wound that the subject had come up. Although now friends and partners, they both took great pains to avoid the details surrounding Joe’s dismissal and disgrace. Neither one of them could claim innocence in this area.
    “Fair enough,” Serpe said, diffusing the tension. “So what was your beef with Monaco?”
    “You mean besides the fact that he was a miserable son of a bitch?”
    “Not for nothing, Healy, but half the NYPD are miserable fucks. So yeah, besides that.”
    “First five or six times it was for excessive force. He tended to be a little too enthusiastic with his fists. Then the last time it was that rooftop thing in Brooklyn. You know, when the black kid allegedly waved a pistol at him and the kid wound up impaled on the courtyard fence twenty stories below. If that incident didn’t happen right after Nine/Eleven, it would’ve been a major scandal.”
    “Did he murder the kid, do you think?” Joe asked.
    “We couldn’t prove it. Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. And let’s just say that in the wake of the terror attack, the department didn’t have much enthusiasm for hanging a cop, any cop, even one like Rusty Monaco, out to dry.”
    “But do
you
think he did it?”
    “Rusty Monaco was a piece of shit and a disgrace to the shield.” “Don’t pull your punches or anything, Bob. Tell me how you really feel about him.”
    “Why are you so interested, huh? Were you two buddies or something?”
    Serpe shook his head yes. “Or something. I knew the man, too.”
    “And what’d you think of him?”
    “That he was a violent, miserable, racist prick, but—”
    “But! Are you kidding me? You’re not seriously going to defend this guy to me, are you? It was miraculous that he didn’t end up in prison, never mind lose his pension. He was an asshole.”
    “No doubt, but an asshole who saved my life.”
    Albie Jimenez was breathing easy. He had gotten his green card a year ago and his Hazmat license two months after that. Finally, he had been able to stop living in that shadow world in which most of his friends were forced to exist. Life on Long Island was strange enough for a man from Tehuacan, Mexico without having to loiter in front of the 7/Eleven on Horse Block Road with a hundred and fifty other Mexicans and Salvadorans waiting to be chosen like cattle at auction.
    Those days were in Albie’s past. Now he kept his eyes only ahead. Soon he’d have the cash to send for his wife and son. He even had a binder on a two bedroom house on Westwood Avenue in Brentwood. It needed some work, but he wasn’t afraid of work. Life was good and it would get better as soon as the authorities caught that
cono
who was killing his fellow drivers. Not that Albie was too worried. He did his deliveries far away from the
myates,
in towns where his own skin was darkest.
    He turned his Ford right off Indian Head Road onto Old Northport Road, past the driving range and into the heart of the industrial area between Commack and Kings Park.
    A little bit before the gates of the masonry supply yard, he spotted a car parked in the road at an odd angle. There was a woman lying between the side of the car and the shoulder of the road. Albie skidded the Ford to a stop, put on his flashers, and hopped out of the cab.
    “Hey, lady,” he called, reaching for his cell phone. “Lady, you okay?”
    Then something disrupted his world.