A Dark and Broken Heart (31 page)

“Sounds like all one thing. So who you after?”

“Seems it all started with whoever put a hole in your guy’s head.”

“Would seem that way.”

“And you never got a lead on this . . . no names, no faces, nothing coming up on it?”

“Not a word. No eyewitnesses, no tip-offs, no CIs coming out the woodwork. No-man’s-land on this one, Vincent, just no-man’s-land.”

“Okay,” Madigan said, and started to get up. “You heard this thing about the robbery on the Sandià house . . . this thing about how there might have been a fourth man on the scene?”

“Sure did.”

“Any ideas?”

“Nothing,” Charlie said. “Pulling a stunt like that. What kind of crazy son of a bitch would do something like that?”

“You figure it might have been the same one who did your guy? Stabbed him in the head?”

“Jesus, Vincent, I don’t know what you’re smoking, but it’s doing wonders for your imagination.”

“Yeah, crazy idea,” Madigan said. “Anyway, I’m gonna snoop around on it, and if anything comes from it I’ll give you the heads-up before we take it to Bryant. It’s still your case, the screwdriver thing.”

“Appreciated, Vincent. But don’t bust your balls on it. Hell, he was only some smalltime dealer. Neighborhood’ll do better without him.”

The conversation ended. Madigan walked away. He made some calls, chased files, went out for lunch. When he got back, four hours had elapsed since his meeting with Charlie Harris and that was when his cellphone rang.

“You have to come see him,” the voice said, just the same as always.

It was the second time in as many days—the drive to Sandià’s place, the elevator ride, the goons on either side of the doorway. Madigan wondered what it would feel like never to have to do this again. En route he had taken a moment to pull over and drop the Subway bag with the disassembled .22 inside it into a municipal trash can.

“We have a good relationship, Vincent,” Sandià said, once Madigan was again seated on the other side of his desk. “Would you agree that we have a good relationship?”

“Yes, we do. No question.”

“I thought you would feel that way, Vincent. And good relationships—doesn’t matter whether they are personal, a marriage even, and especially business—these relationships are based on mutual respect, sometimes a little faith, but always respect. Wouldn’t you agree, Vincent?”

Madigan nodded. He was thinking about Charlie Harris. He was thinking about all the years he’d known Charlie, the cases they’d worked together, the drinks they’d shared after successes, the drinks they’d shared when the bad guy got away, and whether or not it was Charlie Harris who was in Sandià’s pocket.

Christ. Jesus Christ Almighty.

“So we have had our differences over the years, Vincent. I know that. But they have never been differences that we didn’t ultimately resolve . . .”

“What do you want me to do?” Madigan asked, knowing full well the answer before he’d asked the question.

“I want you to leave the death of David Valderas alone.”

Madigan didn’t respond. Not a flinch, not a raised eyebrow, nothing. He smiled inside. “Okay,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I can do that.”

Sandià smiled. “You are a good man, Vincent Madigan.”

Madigan smiled again, internally. Sandià was the second person to say that today. If only they knew what he knew.

“I am not a good man,” Madigan replied. “Neither of us is. If we start to believe that, then we really are in trouble.”

Sandià smiled. It was a cold expression. Madigan drank to forget his conscience. Sandià did not drink—Madigan knew that—and thus to live with his conscience, he must have worked ceaselessly to convince himself of his own rightness.

“So perhaps we are not good, but we are realistic and we are efficient. This is business, Vincent, nothing but business. And as any businessman will tell you, it is kill or be killed out there.”

The tone irritated Madigan. The sense of self-importance, the certainty with which Sandià uttered his edicts and bullshit aphorisms. Madigan was unarmed—protocol dictated he leave his gun outside, but there were many things in the room—letter openers, a glass paperweight, a lamp stand on a nearby table—and he could have taken any one of them and killed Sandià right there and then. He would never have escaped the building. That was a given. But he would have perhaps gone some way toward redressing the wrongs that had been perpetrated by both of them.

Maybe that was the way this would end. Both himself and Sandià dead.

He thought again of Charlie Harris. Maybe Charlie Harris needed to die as well.

“So, otherwise . . . how does this thing progress?” Sandià asked.

“I am turning over every stone,” Madigan said. “That was how I found the connection to Valderas. But if you tell me that I need to look no further in that direction, then I will look no further.”

“It will give you nothing,” Sandià said. “This man had nothing to do with what happened at my house . . . It had nothing to do with whoever stole my money and killed my nephew.”

“Good enough for me,” Madigan said, and started to get up.

Sandià raised his hand. “Stay a moment,” he said. He shifted in the chair, leaned back, seemed to relax. “We never talk, Vincent. We used to talk. Years have passed, we are older, and we should have found more time, but it seems we always have less.”

“Always the way,” Madigan replied. He wondered what bullshit was on the way now.

“I worry about you, Vincent.”

Madigan frowned, and then he smiled. “Don’t,” he said. “I’m a lost cause.”

“Well, perhaps I have chosen to be the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”

“No, my friend, we are the Patron Saints of Liars and Thieves and Killers. That’s who we are. That’s what we do—”

“You have not spoken with your children recently, have you?”

“Sorry?”

“A man loses touch with his children, he loses touch with the most important things in his life. When was the last time you saw any of them?”

“I don’t remember.”

“See? I told you. You need to see your children, Vincent. You need to be reminded of the importance of the future, what you leave behind.”

“I’m afraid the best I’m going to leave behind is a lot of damaged people . . . and some dead ones as well.”

“As we all are, Vincent, as we all are. But still the fact remains that you have children, and they may or may not become what you wish, but they are yours. And I see you are lonely, and there is no one to look after you. A man needs someone to look after him . . .”

“And he reciprocates by looking after that person too, right? Well, it was that part I was never very good at.” Madigan got up. “I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I have a lot to do, and—”

Sandià threw something—something pale and oblong—and it caught Madigan off guard. He snatched it out of the air before it hit the ground.

An envelope. Manila, thick—about an inch and a half.

“Expenses,” Sandià said. “And maybe to buy a little something for your children. Okay?”

“I can’t—”

“You can, and you will. If you deny me this, then I will be offended. I expect you to accept that courteously—a little bonus for helping me deal with these matters—and we shall say no more about it.”

“Thank you,” Madigan said.

“Say my name, Vincent . . . You never say my name. Time was that we would talk like friends and you would always say my name.”

“Thank you, Dario . . . I appreciate it. I really do.”

Sandià got up from behind the desk. He walked around the front
and stood for a moment. He stepped forward, extended his arms, and then he embraced Madigan.

“Don’t forget to care for your children,” he whispered in Madigan’s ear. “Don’t forget to love them. If children grow up without a father, there will be things about themselves that they will never understand.”

Madigan felt every muscle in his body go tense. That was the second thing that Isabella had said that Sandià had now repeated.

I am starting to believe that you are a good man, Vincent
.

If children grow up without a father, there will be things about themselves that they will never understand
.

Sandià let go of Madigan.

“Thank you, Dario,” he said. He could hear tension and uncertainty in his voice.

“I have upset you, Vincent?” Sandià asked.

“No, you have just made me think about things that I didn’t want to think about.”

“Maybe that is a good thing,” Sandià replied. “Maybe that is part of my job as the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”

“Maybe it is,” Madigan said, and he turned to the door.

“Keep me informed of your progress,” Sandià said as Madigan stepped out into the corridor.

“I will, Dario. I will.”

Madigan closed the door quietly behind him and walked down the hallway with the thick manila envelope in his hand.

He knew that Sandià had threatened him. Indirectly, simply by mentioning his children, Sandià had threatened him. And then given him money. That was the game here. Give with one hand, take with the other.

It was about time Sandià was the subject of his own methods.

It was time for the imbalance to be redressed.

47
GO TELL THE MOUNTAIN

W
alsh was waiting for him in the corridor. He seemed agitated. “Vincent,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

“Now?” Madigan didn’t need Walsh right now; he needed some space to think this thing through. Was Charlie Harris the one who had called Sandià? Was it also Charlie who had informed Sandià of Maribel’s presence in the Valderas house? And if so, how did he know that Maribel had been there?

“Yes, now,” Walsh replied. “Can we go into your office?”

Madigan opened the door. Walsh hurried after him, glanced back into the corridor as if alert for someone following him. He closed the door, stood with his back against it, and looked directly at Madigan. Madigan noticed then how pale and exhausted the man looked.

“I have been in Evidence. The gun is missing. The .22 that Tomczak spoke of . . . It’s gone. Christ, Vincent, I don’t know what to think. I’m really in a fucking mess here.”

Madigan laughed. “You’re worried because an item of evidence is missing from storage? Jesus, Duncan, will you just calm the fuck down? If I had an inventory done right now, I guarantee that at least twenty-five percent of the stuff that is supposed to be there is no longer there.”

Walsh sat down. Then he stood up again. He paced back and forth between the door and the desk.

“Hey, seriously . . . calm down, will you?” Madigan said. “I don’t think this is anywhere near as serious as you think. To tell you the truth, the fact that it’s missing might be a good thing.”

“A good thing? How so?”

Madigan could just feel how tense and anxious Walsh was. Walsh was precisely where Madigan needed him to be, and yet he had to calm him down a little. Too anxious, too desperate, and Walsh could do something stupid. More often than not, desperate
situations did not call for desperate measures, but for something quite the opposite.

“Well, if it ain’t there then you don’t have an excuse for not removing it, right?” Madigan said. “And whatever the hell kind of investigation might ensue as a result of its disappearance isn’t going to implicate you. You can’t lie about something you didn’t do.”

“That won’t matter a damn, Vincent. Tomczak has a recording of me making an agreement with him—”

“You could cover this so many ways,” Madigan said. “You’re doing a setup. You’re working on a project to identify a suspected leak inside the PD. Bernie was a test case. You wanted to find out if something you said to Bernie got back to the department . . .”

“It doesn’t work that way, Vincent . . . I get even the slightest suspicion—”

“Walsh, I got it covered,” Madigan said. “I’m taking care of it, okay? Just leave it to me and I will make this thing go away for you.”

“What do you mean, make it go away?”

“Like I say, make it go away. I got it covered. Stop fucking panicking, okay? You really don’t have anything to worry about.”

“How can you say that? How the hell can you say that?”

“Because I’m taking care of it, right? That’s how I can say that.”

“And what happens if something goes wrong?”

“Walsh, just sit down, for Christ’s sake.”

Walsh looked at Madigan, and still that expression—drawn, overwhelmed—told Madigan that Walsh just did not get it.

“Sit down.”

Walsh complied.

“Look, it’s real simple. Someone has something on you, you have something on them . . . Well, in this case
I
have something on them. You have to stop worrying about this thing. It’s gone, okay? It’s just gone.”

“This guy . . . Bernie Tomczak . . . you have something on him?”

“Jesus Christ, Walsh, could you be any more clueless? Hell, man, I have things on everyone.”

“Including me, right?”

“I don’t have anything on you. Bernie Tomczak, now, he
does
have something on you. But we’re taking care of it.”

“We? What d’you mean
we
?”

“Jesus, it’s just an expression. We—you and me, okay?
We’re
taking care of it.”

“And what do you want from me?” Walsh asked, all of a sudden his tone both anxious
and
suspicious.

“From you? I don’t want anything from you. What the hell would I need from you?”

“I’m IA. I can make internals go away. I can make OIS reviews change date . . .”

“I don’t want anything, all right? And as far as all that bullshit with whoever about moving OIS reviews and this and that, just forget about it. This bullshit information you got from Moran about the fourth man being a cop, well, that wouldn’t hold up under any kind of scrutiny. So if the information that Moran gave you was shit, then you don’t have to get his possession bust lifted, and if you don’t have to get the bust lifted—”

“Then I don’t have to get the OIS review postponed for Benedict.”

“Right.”

“And you’re sure that the fourth man was
not
a cop?”

Madigan laughed, and he was amazed at how spontaneous and natural that laugh sounded. “You really honestly believe that a cop would go into one of Sandià’s houses, kill a bunch of guys, Sandià’s nephew included, and make off with a bunch of cash . . . And then, just to get the party going full swing, he decides to whack his three
compadres
in a storage unit? Jesus Christ, that is some wild bullshit out of an airport paperback.”