Immoral Certainty by Robert K. Tanenbaum

true to his word, the meeting on the shooting of Vinnie Red. Four men were sitting around the battered oak table in the bureau chief’s office: Roland Hrcany, Ray Guma, and Tony Harris, all Assistant D.A.’s, and Art Devlin, a police officer. None of them were quick to answer the question. Karp looked at the heavy, sad-faced man sitting at the far end. “Art? Any ideas?”
    Art Devlin, the detective lieutenant who had caught the Ferro case out of Midtown South, said, “Could be anywhere, Butch. Out of town, probably.” He shrugged. “I mean, wise guys—who knows?” His tone implied that he didn’t much care either. This annoyed Karp. If he had to participate in this bullshit, everybody else was going to pull their weight. He frowned and replied, “Um, that’s not all that helpful, Art. I mean, has anybody seen this guy the last couple of days? You got any people working on it, or what?”
    Devlin shrugged again and ran his big hand across the bristling blond stubble on his skull. “Yeah, we got people on it, like we got people on the other six hundred and twenty one unsolved homicides on the books. There’s just so much we can do. And also, a Mob hit….” A final shrug.
    Karp sighed. “Sure, Art, I understand. What about the shooter? Any line on that?”
    “Yeah, not that you’d ever get anybody to stand up in public and repeat it, but it looks like it was Botteglia—Joey Bottles, from the Bollanos. He has a distinctive appearance.”
    “And he’s gone too, I bet.”
    “I don’t know about ‘gone,’ but he’s sure as hell not at home.”
    “So we have no leads?”
    “I didn’t say that, Butch,” Devlin protested, “it just takes time for information to flow in on one of these Mob things.”
    By which he meant, Karp knew, that the cops intended to put the minimum force into the effort until such time as mob rivalries or happenstance threw up a reliable snitch. This was fine with Karp; he would have done the same, in fact, intended to do the same.
    He looked around the table. “Anybody got any ideas?” he asked. “Roland?”
    Karp looked at the man sitting to his right. He was ever an interesting and unusual sight. A backswept mane of white-blond hair almost obscured Hrcany’s eighteen-inch neck. His massive shoulders and arms stretched his shirt to drumhead tightness. He had a heavy-browed, hawk-nosed, belligerent face. Karp and Roland Hrcany went back a long way, having begun working for the D.A.’s office the same week, eight years ago.
    Hrcany snorted. “Yeah, I got an idea. Watch the river. That’s where you’re gonna find Little Noodles.”
    “You think somebody killed him?” asked Karp. “What makes you say that?”
    “It figures. He disappears the day after he fingers a hit on Vinnie Ferro—in public, by the way. We checked the planes, the trains, buses, car rental—he didn’t leave town any of those ways. His wife knows from nothing and he didn’t pull any money out of the bank. Also we got word from the state cops: Umberto Piaccere’s got this condo up in Nyack he uses for meetings and to stash people. The state cops and the Feds keep an eye on it, maybe there’ll be another Appalachin or something. There was what they call ‘unusual activity’ up there the morning after Vinnie got it. They spotted Piaccere and a couple of his heavy hitters and also Joey Bottles.”
    Hrcany paused for effect. “They also saw Impellatti. That also happens to be the last time anybody saw Impellatti. The cops didn’t see him leave, and he sure as shit ain’t there now. So it’s got to be they gave him a ride down the river in a Sicilian speedboat.”
    “I don’t understand, Roland,” said Karp. “Why would they do that? I thought he just did them a favor by helping them nail Ferro.”
    “Favor, schmavor—come on, Butch. These are wise guys. Who else can tie Joey and Harry Pick to the Ferro hit? Hey, your nose is dripping, you’re grateful you got a piece of Kleenex, but do you