Shamrock Alley (34 page)

Likewise, Peter Brauman looked as if someone had just dropped a cinder block across his feet and then slapped him in the face. He, too, could not keep his eyes from John; he stared at John as if to confirm his reality.

“Holy Christ …”

About to pull another chair over to the group, John stood frozen in place. “Did I miss something?”

“I don’t…” Chominsky attempted.

Kersh looked at Peter Brauman, shook the man’s arm. “The hell’s going on, Pete?”

Then, quite surprisingly, Peter Brauman snorted an astonished laugh and rubbed the side of his face with his hand.

Looking directly at John, Dennis Glumly said, “Brett … you’re not going to believe this …” The detective shook his head as if to clear blurred vision. To John, he said, “I’m Dennis Glumly, NYPD.”

“John Mavio.”

“John,” Glumly repeated. Then he, too, laughed. “Son of a bitch! John, we’ve been …” He couldn’t manage the words. Finally, after pausing a moment to collect his thoughts, Glumly said, “How long have you been undercover?” He seemed amazed by his own words.

John knitted his brow. “What’s going on?”

Just as confused, Brett Chominsky turned to Glumly while running a finger along the left side of his face. “Dennis?”

Resignedly, looking at John, Glumly said, “I was just explaining to Agent Kersh that we’ve had a surveillance set up on Mickey O’Shay and Jimmy Kahn for close to two years. And we’ve been watching you, too, for the past couple weeks.”

“Me?” He sat himself down in a chair beside Kersh. Then it hit him, and he smiled. He just couldn’t help it. “You guys thought I was the real deal, huh? Another player on the field …” He shot Kersh a wink and said, “There’s your blue Pontiac.”

“Goddamn,” Glumly muttered, matching John’s grin. “John, man …
how the hell did you get in with these guys?”

“Hold up,” John said. “Why are you guys here?”

Glumly filled John in about spotting the Service’s surveillance vehicles around the candy store. “Figured there must be something big going down if you guys were involved.”

“Counterfeit case,” John said.

Glumly nodded. “So I’ve learned.”

Kersh waved a hand. “Wait, wait—back up.” Turning to Brauman, he said, “What’s the deal with these guys? You said you didn’t give me the whole story that night I came to see you …”

“They’re animals,” Glumly interrupted, without waiting for Brauman to answer, “connected to about fifty unsolved homicides throughout the city. I’m talking brutal shit—shootings, shakedowns, chopping people up into little pieces and scattering the parts like birdseed. Past year I’ve been picking up limbs all over the West Side. Some are probably contract hits, the rest for intimidation. They’ve got the entire West Side petrified, and we’re getting concerned. Six months ago I arrested O’Shay as the prime suspect in a murder rap—butchered some guy in a bar bathroom. Shot him in the knees, poked out one of his eyes, then blew two holes in his head. Ten, maybe a dozen people were in the bar, but I couldn’t get a single witness. I had a snitch put it on Mickey, but he wasn’t there and wouldn’t testify. Every time we get close, people change their minds or simply vanish into the air.” With a straight face, Glumly added, “Or the river.”

John watched as Glumly’s eyes again came to rest on him. He’d been soaking in all the details of the detective’s story up to this point, trying to imagine just how a pair of Hell’s Kitchen hoodlums had come so far so fast. If what Glumly said was accurate, he suddenly understood why Tressa Walker had been so frightened of them that night in McGinty’s. He also understood what it must have been like for her to come out and confess what she knew to him, and to take him into the center of their world.

Looking at John, Glumly said, “They hang around street corners like teenagers and sit inside that candy store almost all day. Occasionally they’ll shoot out to the Garden for a hockey game, but that’s it.” Glumly jerked his chin at John. “You show up, we thought maybe we’d get somewhere. A new player.”

“We
got somewhere,” he told Glumly.

“Yeah,” Glumly said, leaning back in his chair, his left leg bouncing. He noticed his spilled shake and leaned over the armrest of his chair to scoop it up and set it in the half-empty box of doughnuts on Chominsky’s desk. “Yeah, kid, you’re goddamn right you did. I don’t know how the hell you pulled it off, but you’re like a gift from God. I would never have believed an undercover could get into them. They only trust the shit they grew up with.” His features darkened. “But you don’t know these guys like I do.” There was a respect in Glumly’s voice now that John had not expected from the man upon their introduction. It seemed very much out of character. “You deal with them, you think everything’s fine, then they turn on you for no reason and you don’t see it coming.”

“I can handle myself.”

Kersh shot John a look, then turned to Glumly. “Who’s backing them?”

“The gang is Mickey and Jimmy,” Glumly said. “They have a few steadies, but everyone else is just a straphanger, a nickel-and-dimer. They can grab any kid in the neighborhood. These jerks have a hell of a reputation on the streets, and they attract more shit than the can at Port Authority.”

“They’re a cancer spreading across the West Side,” Peter Brauman added.

“Never in a million years did I think anyone could get
inside,”
continued Glumly, this time almost to himself.

“What do you want?” John asked Glumly, feeling both Kersh’s and Chominsky’s eyes suddenly upon him.

A humorless grin threatened the corners of Dennis Glumly’s mouth. He was a man, John realized, who appreciated such directness. “I want you to put them away for us,” Glumly said flatly. “For
everyone.”
He raised one hand, as if taking an oath. “I understand you’re pushing your counterfeit case,” he added, “but you’re in there now and you can get a hell of a lot of info, and you’re a witness that will testify. We can build some case on them.”

“Wait, wait—hold on,” Kersh quickly interrupted. “Our concern is bringing these guys in on counterfeit charges, and flushing out their source.” Kersh turned, now addressing John more than anyone else. “If they’re this nuts, our best bet is to get in and out quickly.”

Glumly was adamant. Still looking at John, he said, “You got the keys to the kingdom here, kid. We’ll never get another shot at these guys. We’ll do whatever you want to help. John, you can make two years of wasted time turn into something.”

“That’s not the reason John’s in there,” Kersh insisted.

“Wait,” John told Kersh. Already Kersh did not like his tone. “Why not take advantage of this? I’m in there. As long as things are cool—”

“John …”

“No.” He turned from Kersh and looked directly at Chominsky. “Boss, what do you think?”

The agent in charge sat forward in his chair, elbows on his desk. “Let’s think it over,” Chominsky said.

Before the end of the day, John was called into Roger Biddleman’s office. It was a meeting he’d been expecting, although he would have gone home a happy man had he not heard from the attorney all day. The call from Biddleman came exactly twenty minutes after John and Brett Chominsky decided John would go for it.

As the light of day dimmed over St. Andrews Plaza, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Biddleman sat behind his desk in a haughty three-piece suit, reprogramming the speed-dial on his cell phone when John entered his office.

The first thing he noticed was Biddleman’s friendly new smile. “
John,”
Biddleman said, stretching out his name until it achieved maximum significance. He quickly stowed his cell phone away in his desk. “Have a seat.”

He dropped in a chair that had been deliberately placed less than two feet away from the front of Roger Biddleman’s desk.

“How’ve you been?” Biddleman asked.

“Got a pretty bad hangover, actually.”

“Uh …” The attorney’s left eyebrow cocked. Quickly averting his eyes, he began rifling through a series of computer printouts lifted from his desk. “Brett Chominsky brought me up to speed on your dealings with Mickey O’Shay and Jimmy Kahn. Your stunt with that liquor was a nice touch, by the way.”

Stunt?
he thought.
Go take a shit
.

Reading from his notes, Biddleman said, “You’ve got them for selling counterfeit money on … two occasions …”

“No.”

Biddleman looked up. “I’m sorry?”

He said, “Just O’Shay. Kahn’s involved, but I haven’t hooked him yet.”

“Kahn …” Biddleman rifled through more of his notes. Finally, he just set the entire stack on his desk and stared over at John with his rodent-like eyes. “This could be big, John. These guys …” He tapped the stack of notes. He’d done his homework. “These guys are some pretty bad players. They done half the stuff NYPD thinks they have, they’ll both be sent away for a very long time.”

John shifted in his seat. No doubt Biddleman was already imagining the headlines. The case was a prosecutor’s wet dream.

“I’m going ahead with the wire taps on the candy store’s phone. Also, the pay phone on the corner and the one in Mickey’s apartment,” Biddleman continued. He’d been struggling to represent an accommodating, friendly disposition … but he could overlook John’s inimical stare no longer. “We’ve had our disagreements,” he said then, a hint of surrender in his voice. “I’ll admit I can be—” he paused, “sometimes …
inflexible
. But you understand.” He laughed, abruptly and cheerlessly. “Anyway, from here on in, I want you to know that you have my complete and devoted support on this case. We’re going to crack this thing wide open together, John. You’re a good agent; you can make things happen.”

“Last time I was here you said I was a pain in the ass, that I should be disciplined. What’s with the change of heart?”

Biddleman shifted uncomfortably, unnerved by John’s tone. “I was upset. The mix-up with the cops, the shooting and all.” He executed a halfhearted shrug, then straightened in his chair. “I can’t help but feel that you’re still upset with me,” Biddleman said, his eyes narrowing, his thin lips pressed tightly together.

“Good,” John said, getting up. “For a second there I thought you misunderstood.”

In the dark and noiseless apartment, John moved down the hallway with his shoes off. A small light over the kitchen sink cast a somber glow on the countertop. A single plate, a lone cup of half-finished coffee, remained on the kitchen table. Beside it, a napkin was balled as if in anger.

In bare feet, he crept into his bedroom and stood for some time in the doorway, his eyes caressing the gentle curves of his wife from across the room. It occurred to him that the past few months of his domestic life equated to countless moments exactly like this one: standing alone in the dark, watching his life continue on without him. He felt pinned to a sedentary wheel, flattened and incapable of movement.

Time would not stand still for him.

He recalled a summer afternoon during their courtship spent at Coney Island. Katie’s laughter blossoming in the humidity, the runnels of diamond-shaped perspiration making slick her neck and dampening her brow. She’d lost a shoe while riding the Tilt-A-Whirl and found an extra ream of tickets in her purse from a previous visit to the park; he’d slammed the hammer down on the strength meter and rung the bell. In a showy display of irony, she’d won him a stuffed panda at the Shoot-For-Loot booth, and it had been an ugly thing with creepy red eyes. They’d laughed about it. She’d called it the Devil Bear. Lost somewhere over time.

Time …

Katie’s guardian angel, he remained standing in the bedroom doorway, unmoving, for a very, very long time.

T
HERE WAS BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE FLOOR
.

Dino “Smiles” Moratto lay in stasis, poised like a turtle spun on its back, his eyes betraying the conflagration of fear, anger, and utter humility that had collected inside him. From his left nostril flowed a scarlet ribbon of blood; it traced like a river down the contours of his face, over the hideous scar that hooked the left side of his mouth into a perpetual grin, up and over the rugged swell of one cheek, finally dipping down into the valley of his left ear. Beside his head, Dino’s blood pooled as if from a busted pipe. A smaller, somehow darker puddle lay smeared by his left arm in a rainbow arc. He worked his mouth noiselessly, his tongue pushing against bad air, his long hair fanned out like the posterior of a peacock on the floor behind his head.