A Dark and Broken Heart (32 page)

Walsh smiled. He tried to smile. It came out looking strained and awkward.

“Get some sleep, okay?” Madigan said. “You don’t look like you’ve slept for a week. Take some time off sick or something . . .”

“Two days,” Walsh interjected. “Two days, no sleep, barely eaten. Worried sick about this . . .”

“Hell, man, you should’ve come and seen me earlier. This is just nothing, you understand? This is just nothing to get all wound up about. It’s gone. It’s history. Okay?”

“I really appreciate your help, Vincent . . . And if there’s something I can do for you—”

Madigan looked pensive for a moment. “Well, now that you mention it, my friend, there was a robbery I did, and I killed a bunch of guys, and I wondered whether you might just help me sweep it under the rug, so to speak.”

Walsh smiled. He started to laugh. “Vincent . . . you’re a good man, and I really appreciate your help.”

There it was again.
Vincent, you’re a good man
. What did they say? Once was happenstance, twice coincidence, third time was a conspiracy? Maybe the world was trying to make him a better person.

“Forget it,” Madigan said. “Go take a sick leave for the day. Get some rest. You look like crap.”

Walsh paused as Madigan held the door open for him. He extended his hand. Madigan took it and they shook.

“I won’t forget this, Vincent,” Walsh said.

“That’s exactly what you need to do.”

“I don’t mean the thing with Bernie . . . I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” Madigan interjected. “Go,” he said. “Eat. Sleep. Get some freakin’ space, will you?”

Walsh nodded. He left the office, walked down the corridor, glanced back at Madigan as he reached the end.

Madigan stepped back and closed the door. He returned to his desk, sat down, and felt the shakes coming long before they arrived. He managed to get the manila envelope out of his jacket pocket and put it in the desk drawer, but by the time the cellphone rang his hand was shaking so much he could barely hold it steady.

“Vincent?”

“Isabella . . . what’s up?”

“I’m scared, Vincent. Someone came to the house. Someone knocked at the door. I think it was that man who was here the other evening . . .”

“Which man? Bernie?”

“I don’t know . . . He had a hat on when he came the other time . . .”

“Yes, that’s Bernie. Don’t worry about Bernie. He’s fine.”

“He didn’t look fine, Vincent. He looked real bad. He looked like someone had given him a real good beating.”

“Okay. Do nothing. Go nowhere. I’ll find Bernie and find out what’s going on, okay?”

“Okay, Vincent . . . but . . .”

“But nothing, Isabella. Leave it to me.”

“All right, Vincent, if you’re sure. I’m just scared, real scared.”

“I know you are. There’s no need to be. No one but me knows where you are. Just leave Bernie to me. Now, hang up and go watch TV or something, and I’ll see you later. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you, Vincent, and I’m sorry for calling.”

“It was the right thing to do. Hang up now. I’ll sort out what’s going on.”

She did so. Vincent put his cellphone on the desk. What the hell was this now? What was Bernie doing going to the house?

Rock and a hard place. If he called Bernie to ask him why he was at the house, Bernie would know someone had been inside. Bernie Tomczak wasn’t the kind of person to let such a thing lie. If he didn’t get hold of Bernie, then he wouldn’t know whether he looked beaten up because of the beating Madigan himself had given him four days earlier, or if someone else had caught up with him. If it was the latter, well, if it was the latter, then Madigan needed to know if it was connected to this thing. Hell, Bernie was going to be in only one of three or four places. Madigan was going to have to trawl them for sight or sound. When he found him, it was going to have to be a coincidence.

Madigan took the manila envelope and opened it. There was ten grand inside. He split the ten grand into three parts, put one third in his pants pocket, one third in each of his jacket pockets. Whatever the hell might be awaiting him when he found Bernie was bound to go easier if he had a stack of cash along as company.

Madigan’s first thought was to head back to the Bronx, but that had been Bernie’s first thought, that Madigan would be home. Bernie wouldn’t come to the precinct—not a prayer—and thus he would check out the haunts where he believed he would find Madigan. They were easy enough to scope out, and it was in the third place he tried that he was almost besieged by a fraught and shaken Bernie Tomczak, and whatever the hell kind of treatment he’d undergone at the hands of Madigan on Monday was just nothing compared to what he had suffered since Wednesday night.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Vincent. I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he said. Two of his teeth were missing, the right side of his face was swollen and pitted with burst blood vessels. He had a cut above his left eye that had bled down to the lid, and a thick gob of congealed blood had dried there.

“What the hell happened to you?” Madigan asked, and he actually felt concerned for Bernie. Such a reaction surprised him.

“I got an issue or two,” Bernie said. He grabbed Madigan’s arm and steered him toward the back of the bar, a quiet place on East
123rd that Madigan sometimes went to when he needed a break from his regular haunts.

“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” Madigan asked.

“Ah man, I got another phone and it didn’t have your number on it. And I would’ve called you from a pay phone, but I couldn’t remember all of your number . . . Anyway, whatever the fuck, it don’t matter. I got you now.”

“So what the hell happened to you? You screwed someone’s little girl and she—”

“I need some money, Vincent, and I need it fast. I don’t know where the hell else to go.”

“How much, Bernie?”

“Eight grand. I need eight grand in about three hours, and I—”

“Eight grand? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding, Vincent? Do I look like I’m yanking your chain? I need eight grand, and I need it fast.”

“And where the hell do you think I’m gonna get eight grand from, Bernie? That’s a sizable chunk of cash.”

“I don’t know, Vincent. I don’t know, and right now I don’t care. You gotta help me. You gotta—”

“I ain’t
gotta
anything, Bernie. You can’t just up and ask me for eight grand—”

“I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay you back for sure, Vincent.”

“Just like you paid whoever you now owe this money to, right?”

“Anything, Vincent—”

“I want the phone,” Madigan said.

Bernie’s eyes widened. “The phone?”

“The phone you recorded the cop on. I want
that
phone.”

“But, Vincent—”

“Bernie, don’t bullshit me. You need eight grand. I can give you eight grand right here and now in cash.”

Bernie smiled weirdly, and then he laughed. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

Madigan reached into his pants pocket. “That’s about three and a half right there,” he said, showing Bernie the bundle of notes as discreetly as he could. “I have another bundle like that in each of my jacket pockets, and I’ll give you eight grand right now if you give me the phone.”

Bernie blinked twice, and then he shook his head. “I can’t . . .”

“This money you need . . . Is it for Sandià?”

“No, of course it isn’t for Sandià.”

“Then you’re screwed,” Madigan said. “You give me the phone for this eight grand, and then you have nothing to barter for the Sandià debt, right?”

Bernie didn’t need to reply. The situation was obvious.

“Okay, Bernie, here’s the deal. I need you alive. This is a bullshit thing you’ve done here. You’ve been running a tab with some other loan shark bookie asshole, right? Whatever the hell you’ve done that’s got you into this much trouble for the sake of eight grand . . . Jesus Christ, I can’t even get my head on with you sometimes . . .”

“Vincent . . . man, seriously, I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut the hell up and listen to me, Bernie. I’m gonna give you the eight grand because I can’t have you die on me right now. I want the phone, okay? You need to give me the phone. You need to give it to me because I’m gonna look after it a helluva lot better than you, and also because if you screw something else up and get yourself killed then I’m in a hole, okay?”

“But, Vincent—”

“Bernie, what the hell did I say?”

“You said to shut the hell up.”

“Good, so shut the hell up a minute and hear me out.”

Bernie shut his mouth.

“Okay, so you give me the phone, I give you eight grand, you keep the hell out of trouble and stay alive for a few more days. I’ll give you another five hundred and you just go hide in a motel or whatever, and you’re on call to me, okay? You do nothing. You go nowhere without my say-so. You understand me so far?”

Bernie nodded.

“Good, so you go hide in a motel someplace, and you call me and let me know where you . . . No, better still, I’m taking you someplace and then I’ll know where you are, and when I call you and tell you to do something, you gotta do it, okay?”

“And what about Sandià . . . I gotta pay Sandià too.”

“I’m dealing with that,” Madigan said. “I’m handling it. I’ll keep my end of the deal if you do exactly what I tell you.”

“Yes, yes . . . Jesus Christ, Vincent, I don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing, Bernie . . . less likely you’ll get into trouble that way.”

“Right, right.”

“Good, so we’re going. Where’s this phone?”

“It’s in a rented mailbox place about three blocks from here.”

“Well, lead the way, my friend. Lead the way.”

They went on foot, and en route Madigan stopped at a phone store and bought a disposable cell with fifty dollars’ credit on it. He dialed his own number into the directory, called himself, then gave the phone to Bernie.

“You have my number now,” Madigan said. “Only number you need. That’s the only phone you answer, and this is the only phone you call out from, okay? When I see you I’m gonna check how many times you’ve called me and how much credit remains. If I find out you’ve been calling hookers or bookies or dealers or whoever, then so help me God I will drive you to see Sandià myself . . .”

“I promise, Vincent. I promise.”

“Okay, so let’s get this phone with the recording on it.”

The mailbox place was where Bernie said it would be, as was the phone. Madigan checked the recording. It was Walsh all right, no question.

“Okay, so where do you have to get this eight grand to?”

“There’s a club up on Marin Boulevard—”

“You’re bullshitting me,” Madigan said. “Marin Boulevard. There’s only one person you could be dealing with if you’ve got to make a drop there. Jesus, Bernie, what the hell was it this time?”

“It was a ball game, okay? A dumb freakin’ ball game. I went double or nothing. It was an outstanding debt from a long way back.”

“Jesus, Bernie, sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with you.”

“It’s a sickness, Vincent . . . Gambling is a sickness . . .”

“Yeah, Bernie, sure as hell it is. Just like being a drunk or a junkie or a kiddy fiddler . . . It’s all a freakin’ illness and no one’s actually responsible.”

“Vincent, I’m sorry . . .”

“Save it, Bernie. We’re going in the car. I’m not walking to Marin Boulevard. And this eight grand . . . This is everything, yeah? This is not,
Get me eight grand today and you’ll stay alive, but I want the rest by tomorrow
? It’s not that kind of deal, right?”

“No. This is everything, Vincent, absolutely everything.”

“It fucking better be, Bernie, or I’m gonna—”

“It is, Vincent, it is. This and the one eighty I owe Sandià, and that’s it.”

“Just this and the one eighty to Sandià. That’s all. Man, you should hear yourself. Don’t know anyone in as deep a hole as Bernie freakin’ Tomczak.”

Madigan heard his own words. There was the lie. The hole Madigan had dug for himself was far, far deeper.

Madigan drove. Neither he nor Tomczak spoke for the duration of the journey. Madigan pulled up outside without even asking where they were supposed to be going.

He counted out the eight grand and gave it to Bernie Tomczak. Bernie looked like he was going to say something, and then he looked like he wasn’t.

“Okay, so go pay the man,” Madigan said, and Bernie got out of the car.

Madigan waited. Bernie was gone no more than ten minutes. While he waited, Madigan listened to the recording Bernie had made of his conversation with Walsh. It was a good recording—no doubt about the identity of the speaker, and no question what each of them meant. If this ended up in the hands of someone inside the PD, then Walsh’s career was done and over. He’d said he’d get rid of the evidence, and—by all appearances—he had.

Bernie Tomczak returned. He seemed relieved.

“They ask where the money came from?” Madigan asked.

“Do they ever?” Bernie replied. “Do they care?”

“No, they don’t,” Madigan said, and started the car.

He drove Bernie back across the river to Mott Haven, found a motel near St. Francis Hospital. He booked him in for a week, paid up-front, gave Bernie another five hundred in cash.

“That,” Madigan said, “is for coffee and cakes, a drink, some smokes, right? Nothing else. I come back and you’ve gambled that . . .”

“Vincent, enough already. I got it. I really got it, okay?”

“Glad to hear it, Bernie. Now, you take care. Stay inside, watch the porn channel, order food delivered in, a different take-out every time. Stay the hell here until I call you.”

Bernie nodded. He stood in the doorway of his new home. “I really appreciate it, Vincent. You know, despite all the shit that’s gone down between us, you really are a good—”

“Save it, Bernie. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Madigan drove back to the precinct, stopping only once at a secondhand cellphone place to buy an identical phone to the one he had taken from Bernie. He recorded the conversation between Walsh and Tomczak on the second phone, and put the first one in the glove box. Back at the precinct he found Walsh, asked him to come to his office. Walsh did so. Madigan sat him down, handed him the phone, and Walsh sat there in quiet disbelief for a good thirty seconds.