The Steel Kiss

St. John Cemetery in Queens is the permanent resting site of a number of notables.

Among them: Mario Cuomo, Geraldine Ferraro, Robert Mapplethorpe and, no less, Charles Atlas. But Amelia Sachs knew it mostly through a quasi-professional connection, you might say. The Catholic cemetery held the bodies of dozens of the most famous gangsters in history. Joe Colombo, Carmine Galante, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, John Gotti, and the quintessential Godfather, Lucky Luciano.

Sachs now parked her Torino at the entrance on Metropolitan Avenue, in Middle Village, pastoral by New York City standards. The main building was a structure that both Bavarians and Elizabethan country folk would have found familiar. Steepled, turreted, with leaded windows and brick walls with white trim.

She climbed out and, from habit, unbuttoned her jacket then touched her Glock grip with open palm just to orient position. If you’d asked her a moment later if she’d done this, she couldn’t have told you.

There were two unmarked cars parked nearby, from the local precinct. They were, she was pleased to note, highly unmarked. No buggy whip antennas or computers occupying the interstitial portion of the front seat. Real license plates, not government or permanents.

A young patrol officer, name of Keller on the breastplate, nodded to her from his vantage point near the entrance.

“Can we walk?” she asked.

“Yes, and it’s better.”

She understood he’d be referring to the fact that any car would arouse attention in the largely open cemetery.

“We should move fast, though. It’ll be dark soon. We’ve got the entrances covered, but… ”

They started off, silently, through the entrance and then along the asphalt drive. The spring evening was mild as a greeting card and a number of people were here, leaving flowers. Some were alone, widows and widowers probably. Mostly elderly. There were couples too, flowering their parents’ graves or perhaps their children’s, she guessed.

In five minutes they came to a deserted section of the cemetery. Two ESU officers, compact crew-cut men in tactical gear, looked up. They were taking cover behind a mausoleum.

She nodded. One of the tac cops said, “He got here a half hour ago and he hasn’t budged. We had an undercover move people away. Told them there’s going to be a state funeral later and we wanted to keep the area clear for security.”

Sachs looked past them to a grave about fifty feet away, at the back of a man sitting on a bench near a tombstone.

“If he rabbits,” she asked, “other teams?”

“Oh, we’re covered. There, there and there,” Keller said, pointing. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“No car?”

“No vehicle, Detective.”

“Weapons?”

“Didn’t present.” This from one of the tac officers. His partner shook his head. Added, “But there’s a backpack beside the bench. In reach.”

“He took something out of it. Set it on the tombstone, there, see it? I looked with the binoculars. Seems like it’s a toy. A ship or something. A boat.”

“It’s a miniature,” Sachs said without looking closely. “Not really a toy. Back me up. I’m going to take him.”

* * *

Vernon Griffith did not resist.

He would have been a formidable opponent; he was truly skinny but she could see muscles under the close-fitting shirt and he was tall, with a very long reach. And the backpack probably contained another deadly ball-peen or maybe a blade or saw like the ones she’d found in Chelsea.

The Steel Kiss…

He’d been clearly surprised at the officers’ sudden presence and after half rising, dropped down on the bench once more, holding his strikingly long hands up, straight in the air. Keller directed him onto his knees and then the ground, where he was cuffed and frisked. And the backpack searched. No guns, no hammers, nothing that might be used as a weapon.

Sachs guessed that he’d been lost in a meditation about his brother, whose grave he was sitting in front of. Or, if he believed in that sort of thing, maybe Griffith actually thought they were engaging in a conversation.

On the other hand he might simply have been thinking of practical matters. What was to come next. After the events of the past few days he’d have some thinking to do.

Then, helped to his feet and flanked by the ESU officers, he and Sachs walked to the front of the cemetery office. Griffith was deposited on another bench, this one featuring a verdigris dove. They were waiting for a prisoner transport van; Griffith would have been very cramped in the back of one of the unmarkeds. Besides, he had hurt people in such clever and unpleasant ways that you wouldn’t want him behind you in a squad car, much less a Ford Torino, even cuffed.

Sachs sat next to him. She took out her tape recorder, clicked it on, then recited his Miranda rights. Asked if he understood them.

“I do. Sure.”

Griffith had long fingers, to match the feet, whose size they knew, of course. His face was lengthy too but the pale, beardless visage was nondescript. His eyes were hazel.