A Dark and Broken Heart (43 page)

No more than a few minutes inside, Young and Henderson dispatched to search the premises, and Young returned with the duffel.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” he said to Madigan.

“Oh, I doubt it,” Madigan said. “There’s very little that’s gonna surprise me now.”

Young held out the bag, pulled apart the handles. Bundles of money sat there. Dozens of them.

“Okay,” Madigan said. “Well, maybe that’s a little surprise, yes . . .”

He reached out. Young gave him the bag.

“You wanna split this now or later?” Madigan said. He looked at Young and Henderson in turn, his expression deadpan.

Then he cracked a smile. “Jesus, you guys. You should see your faces. Lighten up.”

Young just looked anxious. Henderson tried to smile but was still in the shock of the shooting.

Madigan was panicking inside. This was serious. This had gone seriously wrong. But he had to play it down, had to make light of it. Last thing he needed now was an emotional babysitting case. He had to get back to the precinct, had to turn the money over to Evidence, and then hope to hell that he got the visit he expected.

“Ah, to hell with it,” Madigan said. “It was probably just a flesh wound. The guy’ll get over it. It’ll make him easier to find anyway, right?”

“But what if it wasn’t?” Henderson asked. “What if it was a fatal wounding?”

“You ever killed a man?” Madigan asked.

“No, sir, I haven’t.”

“Well, maybe you have now. Kinda think such possibilities go with the territory. I think it’s what they call an occupational hazard.”

Henderson looked crushed.

Back at the car he called for Crime Scene. He told Young and Henderson to wait at the property. They were responsible for securing the site until the techs got there.

“And don’t shoot anyone else, okay?” he called out to Henderson as he crossed the road to the car.

Henderson raised his hand. He still didn’t look any better, poor bastard. Well, hell, there was always a first time. Once you dealt with that, it was no longer a problem. At least that had been the way it’d been for Madigan. Irrespective of how Young felt, there was still the possibility that one of Bernie’s associates was wounded. A graze, a flesh wound, a through and through. Madigan had no way of knowing. Maybe the guy had already collapsed
and died someplace. This was something he had not predicted. This could throw the entire strategy to shit.

He started the engine, pulled away from the curb, glanced there at the duffel on the passenger seat, and wondered how many more lives were going to be over because of what was inside.

57
YELLOW EYES

I
t was past noon by the time Madigan arrived at the precinct. He filed his report, put the duffel in Evidence storage, filled out the paperwork, and then went to his office.

He sat patiently until one, and then he went to lunch. He received no word from Young or Henderson, nor from the Crime Scene team at Bernie’s house, and there had been no calls from Walsh. He thought to call Walsh, ask him to turn the heat up, but he dropped the idea. Walsh had done what he’d been asked to do, and that would have to be good enough.

It was while he was eating that the call came.

“Vincent?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Al. Where are you?”

“In a diner down a block or two. I’m just having lunch. What’s up?”

“I need to speak to you.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“I’ll head on back.”

“No, I’ll come there. What’s the name of the place?”

“You wanna come here?”

“What’s the name of the place, Vincent?”

“It’s called DiMarco’s, up on 115th.”

“I know it,” Bryant said. “Be there in ten.”

“You want I should order you a sandwich or something, Sarge?”

The line had gone dead.

Madigan pocketed his cellphone. He took a deep breath. Maybe this thing would work. Hell. Maybe it just might work.

Bryant was good to his word. He appeared ten minutes later. Madigan was surprised at how calm he felt. He’d even managed to finish his sandwich.

Bryant, however, looked like a wreck.

“Jesus, Sarge, you look like crap. What the hell is going on?”

Bryant nodded to a booth way back in the diner. Madigan didn’t question him. He followed Bryant and they took seats. The waitress asked if Bryant wanted anything.

“Coffee, just coffee,” he said, and Madigan asked for a refill.

Once the coffee had been delivered Madigan asked what was going on.

“I have Walsh on my case,” he said. “This thing you spoke about. This thing about the fourth man at the Sandià house being a cop. Looks like there’s some substance to it.”

“Oh fuck,” Madigan said.

“Oh fuck, exactly. And I can’t have this going on, Vincent. Not in my precinct.”

“Did Walsh speak to you directly?”

“Sure he did. This morning.”

“Did he say who he thought this guy was, the fourth man?”

“No, he didn’t, and I don’t think he knows. I don’t think he’s even certain that the fourth guy
is
a cop, but I can’t take that risk.”

“So even if it is a cop, it could be someone from another precinct entirely, right?”

“Sure it could be,” Bryant said. “But am I prepared to take that risk? Hell, no. I can’t have my precinct pulled to pieces on this . . .”

Madigan understood. He saw where this was going. Bryant was thinking of the department’s reputation. This was not a personal request, but a professional one. Think of the reputation of Bryant and Callow and Harris, even Madigan himself . . . Do the right thing, Vincent. Help us preserve the status quo. We do more good than bad. We get more right than wrong. Let’s get this shit sorted out. Let’s use what we know to back Walsh off, to get IA off our cases. Let’s have everything go back to normal so we can just get the hell on with our jobs. Sometimes you have to do a little bad for the greater good.

Madigan gave the impression of dawning realization. “You want that phone,” he said. “You want that phone so you can get Walsh off our case, right?”

Bryant didn’t reply.

Jackpot.

“Jesus, Sarge . . .”

“But you understand why, right? You understand why I’m doing this? For the good of the precinct, the department . . .”

“For sure,” Madigan said. “I just don’t know . . .”

“The money. The guy, your CI . . . He was offered a lot of money . . .”

“A hundred and fifty grand.” Madigan stopped dead. He looked at Bryant. His eyes widened.

“For all of us,” Bryant said. “I’m thinking of all of us . . .”

“Jesus Christ, Sarge . . .”

“So who the hell knows, Vincent? You, me, Evidence, whichever uniforms you took on the bust?”

“Fucking hell . . . Jesus Christ . . .”

“I saw that memo come in, Vincent, and it all made sense. It was like some kind of divine intervention. You bust two hundred grand from some schmuck’s house, and there it is, problem solved. We get the phone off your CI. We back Walsh off. He tells IA to look in some other direction. Everyone goes home happy.”

Madigan didn’t speak. He looked down at his hands. He didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling. He didn’t want to
try
and describe it.

“It
is
one hell of a coincidence,” Madigan said eventually, and then he looked up at Bryant, and he could see his own face reflected in Bryant’s eyes. He could see in Bryant’s expression the fact that Bryant believed Madigan was going to go along with this insane idea . . . That there was a way out for everyone, that Vincent Madigan was going to be his ally, his buddy, his
compadre
. . .

He wondered how much Bryant’s expression would change if he let slip that the money had come from Bernie Tomczak’s place; that Bernie was the one with the phone; that the money that now sat in Evidence was Sandià’s own money; that this was the money from the house robbery . . .

Oh shit, would that be a sight to see.

But he said nothing. Bernie’s address had not been noted on the paperwork. In fact, had Bryant taken the time to look at anything but the fact that two hundred grand had been admitted under Madigan’s signature to the Evidence Room, then he would have noticed that a significant number of pertinent and necessary details had been omitted from the paperwork. Didn’t matter a damn, because that paperwork was going in the precinct boiler room furnace anyway. Had never been destined for anywhere else.

“Too much of a coincidence to ignore,” Bryant said.

Madigan didn’t respond.

“Of course, there’d have to be something in it for you, Vincent,” Bryant said.

Madigan waved the comment aside. “We have to think of the good of the precinct,” he said. “We have a hard enough time already without getting God knows what bullshit dragged through the papers . . . And sometimes IA can be such a bunch of assholes . . .”

Madigan could feel Bryant relaxing even as he spoke, for Madigan was saying precisely what Bryant wanted to hear and he was heading in precisely the direction Bryant wanted him to go. Then Madigan said, “I will have to talk to the guy, the one with the phone.”

“For sure.”

“And you need to override the paperwork. You have to pull all the paperwork from that raid, and you have to get that money out of Evidence and hide it, and you have to make all the connections to me go away for good. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“And what about Young and Henderson?”

“Who?”

“The two uniforms who did the bust with me this morning.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Bryant said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m gonna hear that they were killed in the line of duty tomorrow?”

“Jesus, Vincent, what the fuck? What kind of person do you think I am? Hell no, they’re not gonna get killed in the line of duty. Jesus Christ, man, what the hell do you say something like that for?”

Madigan shook his head. “I don’t know, Sarge. I’m sorry. This is just some very scary shit going on here.”

“I said I’ll take care of it. I’ll tell them that the money was counterfeit, that it got confiscated by the Treasury Department, that they both get commends for their stellar work, and that the investigation has now been passed over to the feds and the Secret freaking Service, okay? They’re just rookies, man. They’ll believe whatever the fuck I tell ’em.”

“Good. Okay. I just don’t want any casualties around this thing. It’ll just get complicated—”

“Vincent, seriously, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. You just
speak to your guy. See if he’ll take the hundred and fifty grand for the phone from you, okay?”

“You’ll have to make him a better offer. He was promised a hundred and fifty by the press, remember?”

“So see what he’ll take. We got two hundred to spend, no more.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Madigan said, knowing full well that in a handful of hours he would come back to Bryant and tell him that after long and tense negotiations Bernie Tomczak wanted exactly a hundred and eighty grand. It was precisely the amount he needed, precisely the amount he owed Sandià, though Al Bryant would never know that detail.

Bryant’s shoulders seemed to lower a good four or five inches, like someone’d had his spine in a tourniquet and then released it.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this—” Bryant started.

“Hell, don’t thank me. Thank the good luck fairy who put two hundred grand in the Evidence Room this morning.”

“I’ll go handle it,” Bryant said.

“And remember, Sarge . . . Nothing, absolutely
nothing
comes back to me, okay?”

“Enough said, Vincent. You have my word.”

Madigan watched Bryant go. Bryant thought they were out of it, that he and his precinct were in the clear, that he’d get the phone, tell Walsh to go screw himself, and everyone would walk away unscathed.

Bryant had no idea. Not a single damned clue.

Neither did Walsh. Walsh thought he was off the hook with the duplicate phone Madigan had given him. Now he was going to find out that there was a second phone.

Madigan finished his coffee and left the diner. He drove to Mott Haven to see Bernie. Bernie was intrinsic in this plan. Bernie needed to be kept apprised of every step that was taken.

Ironic, Madigan thought, that only days earlier he had kicked Bernie six ways to Sunday and back to Christmas for the sake of a debt that was about to be paid. The irony did not escape Madigan, didn’t escape him at all. Had he known what would transpire in those days as he gave Bernie Tomczak yet another smack, well, he wouldn’t have believed it. Even he—Vincent Madigan, he who had seen it all from the top down and the bottom up—would not have believed it.

Life was a joke sometimes, and not always funny.

It was two fifteen by the time Madigan reached the motel. He went in through reception and knocked on Bernie’s door.

“Who’s it?”

“Me. Madigan.”

Bernie opened up. The usual barrage of questions did not assault Madigan. Bernie looked sober, a little serious.

“What’s up?”

“My guy got shot.”

Madigan frowned.

“This morning, Vincent. One of my guys got shot. One of your overenthusiastic rookies took a freakin’ shot at my guy and winged him. He’s got a through-and-through at the side of his gut, and right now I am trying to find a doctor who will fix him up. This . . . Fuck it, Vincent.
This
was not part of the fucking deal here.”

“How the hell do you know what happened, Bernie? Tell me that. How the hell do you know what happened this morning?”

“Because he phoned me, okay? They called me. They told me what happened, and right now he’s in a safe place, but he’s bleeding, man. He’s bleeding bad, and he needs a doctor.”

“I told you not to make any calls, and I told you not to take any either, Bernie. You went and gave your number to these guys? Jesus, do you not listen to a word I say?”

“These are my guys, Vincent. My people, okay? They’re people that trusted me to give them a good gig here, and you went and screwed it up!”

“Hey, cut that shit out right now, Bernie. You know the deal here. This isn’t kindergarten, okay? You take the risks, okay? You take the damned risks, and it comes out the way it comes out. You’re playing in the big league here, my friend, and this is how it goes sometimes, right?”