The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella (16 page)

“We thought he was going for a gun,” I said.

The hit man held his gold Zippo in his right hand.

“So he was going for his cigarettes?” I said. “That’s a damn shame.”

“I thought I heard something on the wire. Something Vinnie said, but the mike cut out most of the sentence. If I find out you—”

“What? You put me and Vinnie in the mousetrap that caught this guy. You did what Frost wanted to do. If it went wrong, it went wrong. Let’s not forget this guy put down a lot of cops today. And he came here to kill Vinnie,” I said.

Blood began to spread from beneath the corpse. McAllister stepped back.

“Let’s do a sweep, make sure we’re clear,” said the SWAT commander, and left the kitchen with his men.

When I’d hit the floor, I’d landed on the camera. The screen was broken, and the image from the beginning of the video had disappeared. All that remained was a black screen covered in spiderweb cracks. I picked it up off the floor and examined it.

“I’ll take that,” said McAllister.

I tossed it, and she caught the camera one-handed.

“What are you going to do with it?” I said. But I’d already guessed the answer.

“People have a right to know what happened.”

“The department will fire you in a heartbeat,” I said.

“I was thinking of quitting anyway. Frost did nothing with this, and he paid for it with his life. The city can’t complain you broke the agreement if we recover the video from a dead suspect, so don’t worry. I’m not messing with your settlement.”

“I know that, but you need to think about the damage this could do. NYPD officers working with a hit man to frame innocent men for contract killings—what’s that gonna sound like on
60 Minutes
? This will blow up in your face, McAllister. The cops on the beat need
to start calming the hell down, and the citizens need to be reminded that there are plenty of good police out there. The truth comes at a heavy price. Vinnie’s already given you the dates when money moved in and out of his account. You can use that to tie down the Morgue Squad murders and get those innocent men released who are still behind bars.”

“Oh, I’ll do all of that. I’ll make sure of it. When that’s done, I’m leaking the video. I’m not afraid of the truth, Eddie. You shouldn’t be either.”

There was no changing her mind.

“Goodbye, Vinnie. Enjoy Witness Protection. I hear Alaska is nice this time of year,” I said.

“Eddie, thanks,” he said. He held out a hand. I turned and walked out of the house. Vinnie had made a lot of money from human misery, and I wanted no part of him. Vinnie would go on the record about the Morgue Squad, and once IAB were sure they’d cleaned up all the loose ends, he could re-enter the world.

I called a cab and waited outside on the lawn. The night had turned cold, and I welcomed it. Every inch of it. It reminded me that I was still alive, when so many were not.

The cab arrived, and I told the driver to take me to Queens.

Traffic proved light, and I told the cabdriver to stop by the river. I needed a minute. It was out of my way, but I needed to do something right then. It couldn’t wait. I got out of the cab and strolled to the water. The river came right up to the railing. I leaned over and took the memory card from my shirt pocket. I’d ejected and palmed it before I’d handed the camera over to McAllister.

There was a gap between the bracket and the rail; I jammed the card in and twisted until it snapped. As I watched the two halves float away on the river, I thought of Maria.
Maybe McAllister was right. Maybe it should’ve come out in the open. All the cops who’d been involved were dead. The men who were wrongfully convicted would soon be released, thanks to Vinnie’s sealed testimony to the DA and his accounts.

I didn’t want Maria to watch her husband’s murder. She had a chance now. I couldn’t see her hurt anymore. Her last memory of Chilli should not be his body falling from Marzone’s grip. Sometimes the truth is too painful to watch.

I got back in the cab and told the driver to take me home. While we drove, I checked my phone. There was a message from Jack. Maria’d had a little boy. Mama and Chilli Junior were doing just fine.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Over the next six months, twenty-six men had their convictions overturned by the district attorney. The official line was that an internal review of a deceased officer’s cases had raised serious concerns about the investigations and that evidence had come to light conclusively proving another man, also now deceased, had been responsible.

Thanks to early tip-offs from McAllister, we signed up quite a few of those ex-cons and settled wrongful conviction cases with the city quickly and quietly. If Halloran and Flynn ever had a golden period, this was it. The money was coming in, finally. The only problem was that Jack began spending it. He wasn’t the same after the Hernandez case; his poker game went to shit, he came into the office less, and his drinking escalated. He told me one night that he’d lost it. Whatever courage, or nerve, he once had at the table just wasn’t there anymore.

Before the year was out we were almost broke again.

Then things started to pick up. I came into the office one morning to find Jack already at his desk.

“Either your apartment’s on fire or you got evicted. Which is it?” I said.

He laughed and said, “Neither, my friend. We’ve got a new client. I’m on my way to meet him.”

A half bottle of Jim Beam went into his pocket. He lifted his keys from the bowl on his desk and stopped. Put the bottle back in his drawer and fixed his top button.

“You’re meeting a client sober? Who is it? The President?”

“Funny. It’s the Russian mob. You remember that hit on the Italian guy? They caught the shooter in the apartment with the dead man about ten minutes after he killed him.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“It was a mob hit by the Russians. They’re shopping for lawyers. They’ve been through a couple of firms already. I got the call last night to meet them for breakfast. I need you to cover my cases this morning.”

“I can’t. I’ve got jury selection in the Berkley case.”

“Shit. I’ll call Volchek, tell him I’ll take him to lunch.”

There was a strange energy in Jack that morning. I hadn’t seen him so animated in a long time. I thought that maybe we had hit rock bottom, and between the attempted kidnapping trial for Ted Berkley and the promise of a long, drawn-out mob murder, we were crawling back to the top. We could catch up on our rent, pay off a few debts, and even lower the overdraft. This was another turning point for Halloran and Flynn, and I had a feeling that morning that everything would be all right.

I was wrong.

Acknowledgements

My thanks, as ever, to my amazing wife, Tracy, and my friends and family for all their support. This novella would’ve been much poorer without the expert guidance and suggestions of my editor, Jemima Forrester, and my agent Euan Thorneycroft. I’m immensely grateful to all at Orion Books for placing this in your hands.

My biggest thanks for this novella goes to the Northern Ireland Arts Council, for supporting me, and other writers and artists like me. May they continue to do so for many years to come.

CHAPTER ONE

“Do exactly as I tell you or I’ll put a bullet in your spine.”

The accent was male and Eastern European. I detected no tremors or hints of anxiety in his voice. The tone sounded even and measured. This wasn’t a threat; it was a statement of fact. If I didn’t cooperate, I would be shot.

I felt the unmistakable electric pressure from a handgun pressed into the small of my back. My first instinct was to lean in to the barrel and spin sharply to my left, turning the shot away from my body. The guy was probably right-handed, which meant he was naturally exposed on his left side. I could throw an elbow through that gap into the guy’s face as I turned, giving me enough time to break his wrist and bury the weapon in his forehead. Old instincts, but the guy who could do all of those things wasn’t around anymore. I’d buried him along with my past. I’d grown sloppy. That’s what happens when you go straight.

Without pressure on the faucet, the patter of water falling on porcelain faded. I felt my fingers shaking as I raised my wet hands in surrender.

“No need for that, Mr. Flynn.”

He knew my name. Gripping the sink, I raised my head and looked in the mirror. Never saw this guy before. Tall and slim, he wore a brown overcoat over a charcoal suit. He sported a shaved head, and a facial scar ran vertically from below his left eye to the jawline. Pushing the gun hard into my back, he said, “I’ll follow you out of the bathroom. You’ll put on your coat. You’ll pay for breakfast, and we’ll leave together. We’re going to talk. If you do as I tell you, you’ll be fine. If you don’t—you’re dead.”

Good eye contact. No blushing of the face or neck, no involuntary movement, no tells at all. I knew a hustler when I saw one. I
knew the look. I’d worn it long enough. This guy was no hustler. He was a killer. But he was not the first killer to threaten me, and I remembered I got clear last time by thinking, not panicking.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He stepped back a pace and held up the gun, letting me see it in the mirror. It looked real : a snub-nosed, silver revolver. I knew from the first second the threat was genuine, but seeing the short, evil weapon in the mirror set my skin alive with fear. My chest began to tighten as my heart stepped on the gas. I’d been out of the game too long. I would have to make do with thinking
and
panicking. The revolver disappeared into his coat pocket and he gestured toward the door. The conversation appeared to be over.

“Okay,” I said.

Two years of law school, two and half years clerking for a judge, and almost nine years as a practicing attorney, and all I managed to say was
okay
. I wiped my soapy hands on the back of my pants and ran my fingers through my dirty-blond hair. He followed me out of the bathroom and across the floor of the now-empty diner, where I lifted my coat, put it on, slid five bucks under my coffee cup, and made for the door. The scarred man followed me at a short distance.

Ted’s Diner was my favorite place to think. I don’t know how many trial strategies I had worked through in those booths, covering the tables with medical records, gunshot wound photos, and coffee-stained legal briefs. In the old days, I wouldn’t have eaten breakfast at the same place every day. Way too risky. In my new life, I enjoyed the routine of breakfast at Ted’s. I’d relaxed and stopped looking over my shoulder. Too bad. I could’ve used being on edge that morning : I might have seen him coming.

Walking out of the diner into the heart of the city felt like stepping into a safe place. The sidewalk bustled with the Monday-morning commute, and the pavement felt reassuring under my feet. This guy wasn’t going to shoot me in New York City, on Chambers Street, at eight fifteen in the morning in front of thirty witnesses. I stood to the left of the diner, outside an abandoned hardware store. I felt my face reddening with the pinch that November brings to the wind as I wondered what the man wanted. Had I
lost a case for him years ago? I certainly couldn’t remember him. The scarred man joined me at the boarded-up window of the old store. He stood close so we couldn’t be separated by passersby. His face cracked into a long grin, bending the scar that bisected his cheek.

“Open your coat and look inside, Mr. Flynn.”

My hands felt awkward and clumsy as I searched my pockets and found nothing. I opened the coat fully. On the inside I saw what looked like a rip, as if the silk lining was coming away from the stitching. It wasn’t a rip. It took me a few moments to realize there was a thin black jacket inside my coat, like another layer of lining. I hadn’t seen it before. This guy must have slipped the jacket sleeves into my coat when I was in the bathroom. Slipping my hands across my back, I found a Velcro seam for a pocket that sat low down, just above my waist. Pulling it around so I could get a look at it, I tore open the seam, put my hand inside, and felt a loose thread.

I pulled the thread from the hidden pocket. But it wasn’t a thread.

It was a wire.

A red wire.

My hands followed it to what felt like a thin plastic box and more wiring, and then to two slim, rectangular bulges in the jacket that sat on either side of my back.

I couldn’t breathe.

I was wearing a bomb.

He wasn’t going to shoot me on Chambers Street in front of thirty witnesses. He was going to blow me up along with God knew how many victims.

“Don’t run, or I detonate the device. Don’t try to take it off. Don’t attract attention. My name is Arturas.” He pronounced it
Ar-toras
through his continuing smile.

I took in a sharp gulp of metallic air and forced myself to breathe it out slowly.

“Take it easy,” said Arturas.

“What do you want?” I said.

“My employer hired your firm to represent him. We have unfinished business.”

My fear subsided a little : This wasn’t about me. It was about my old law firm, and I thought I could palm this guy off on Jack Halloran. “Sorry, pal. It’s not my firm anymore. You’re talking to the wrong guy. Who do you work for, exactly?”