The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella (3 page)

When I got to my car, I swore.

A yellow ticket on my windshield brought my thoughts firmly back to my financial reality. Last thing I needed was another parking ticket.

Only, it wasn’t a parking ticket. It was a yellow Post-it note with a telephone number. Beneath the cell number, it read:

“Call A.F. Group 54.”

A.F. sounded like initials, but I didn’t know anyone with a name to match them. The second part of the message struck a chord. By the time I’d gotten into my car and started it, I’d remembered.

Group 54 was the special investigation unit of IAB. The Internal Affairs Bureau for the New York City Police Department.

Chapter Three

The phone call had been short.

“Hey, I found a message on my car window. My name—”

“Corner of Old Fulton Street and Water. Buy a cone from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. Be there within the hour.” A female voice, low and fast.

“Hang on. Who are you? What do you want?”

“The widow of Chilli Hernandez is a nice lady. Soon she’ll have an extra mouth to feed. What we got could buy a lot of ice cream,” she said, and hung up.

One Old Fulton Street used to be home to a great Italian restaurant. The sign over the corner door was an Italian chef holding a plate that bore the slogan P
ETE
’
S
D
OWNTOWN
. It had been open since the early 1980s, and I’d been there with my parents a few times. In fact, the last dinner we’d eaten together was at Pete’s. My father had the vodka penne. I don’t remember what my mom ate, maybe the veal. I’d had a burger and a Brooklyn lager. Six months later, the illness that eventually took my father began to eat at his body.

The recession had cut deep. Old Fulton Street was prime real estate with a killer view of the Brooklyn Bridge and a steady flow of tourists coming off the East River Ferry. This area of Brooklyn, which included the ferry and the park, got the name DUMBO: down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass. It was a quiet part of town, which had seen more life only in recent years, once the ferry service began to bring tourists and commuters into the area. Even so, Pete’s had been closed for a couple of years. Landlords got squeezed by the banks, so they
squeezed their tenants. I’d heard that a high-class fast-food chain that sold ten-dollar hamburgers was opening up in place of Pete’s. Things change.

I took off my jacket, bought myself a butter pecan cone from the ice cream stall, and took a seat on a bench in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The dying sun wet my shirt, and I loosened my tie. There was only one thing on my mind—money. What information did Internal Affairs have, and how much would it cost?

One thing I knew for certain: The cops were keeping tabs on me. Somebody was looking for my name in the computer, in the custody records. If Marzone or one of his pals was responsible for that, well, Internal Affairs was also watching—they knew I was in the precinct tonight, they knew what car I drove, and they were careful to make the approach out of sight.

I took another bite from my cone as I had a terrible thought. What if it wasn’t Internal Affairs who wanted to meet me? What if Marzone was setting me up for something? As quick as the thought occurred to me, I dismissed it. If Marzone wanted to threaten me, he would do it straight up. No charade, no phone calls. He wasn’t that kind of operator.

A cherry-red Chevy pulled up under the old restaurant sign. Most senior IAB officers got to choose their own car, instead of the dross of Crown Vics in the pool. Perks of being in the rat house. One more reason to believe this was a genuine approach from Internal Affairs. The female driver got out, carrying a folded newspaper. Shades, long brown hair, blue jeans, and denim shirt to match. Her clothes looked tight on an athletic frame. A bulge on her left hip said she was carrying her police-issue Glock. She bought a cone and sat down beside me on the bench. No perfume. Just a clean smell, as if she’d just stepped out of a bath.

It was getting dark. Coming up on eight o’clock. I was tired and wanted to go home. The last of the ferry passengers gathered to my right, ready to board the vessel. I was about to
speak, but the woman cut me off. Her mouth hidden behind her newspaper, she said, “Keep your eyes on the ground. We’re being watched. If you look at me, or speak to me, you’ll likely take a bullet. If you want to know how it really went down for Chilli Hernandez, take the next ferry. It sails in seven minutes. Be quick, and you might just make it. Don’t stop for anyone. Go, right now.”

Chapter Four

I couldn’t move.

Legs frozen. My mouth filled with the last of the ice cream cone. Wiping my hands on a napkin, I made sure to keep my eyes low. Suddenly I didn’t have the will to stand. That small physical act seemed way beyond me, as if my legs were born two minutes ago. My throat clung to the ice cream cone, like it was constricting around it, getting ready to strangle me before I could get myself shot.

Hand on the armrest. Ready to move. Jell-O kneecaps and trembling fingers.

A wave of adrenaline took me to my feet, and I made for the ticket machine. The glass surrounding the vending machine was frosted, and I couldn’t check my tail. As I fed four one-dollar bills into the slot, I accessed the camera on my cell phone, flipped the camera view so that it displayed a mirror image. I slowly angled it around.

The camera gave me a pretty good rear view. Tourists in shorts and tees. Cyclists. Families. Construction workers digging up the sidewalk on the other side of Furman Street. Lifting my ticket, I turned and made for Pier 1. An old barge had been converted into a restaurant and bar, with live music every night. I passed it and picked up my pace. The ticket agents were waving passengers onto the East River Ferry. The engines were growing louder, revving up to begin their journey. One last check over my shoulder before I broke into a full sprint. I saw one man maybe fifty feet behind me, also jogging for the ferry. He wore navy pants, a gray shirt, and a light sports coat. As his pace increased, the wind blowing off the river blew open his jacket, revealing a shoulder holster for a handgun that sat snugly beneath his left arm.

I took off as fast as I could, waving to the deckhands to hold on. A single drumbeat of feet behind me, pounding the boardwalk. Their rhythm was quicker than mine and getting louder every second. He was gaining on me. My tie flipped around my neck as I hit full speed, my heels scattering over the boards just before I came to a halt in front of the deckhand.

He waved me on, then closed the gate behind him. The interior cabin boasted huge windows for the perfect passenger view of the skyline. I leaned over a seat, panting like a dog, drenched in sweat, and watched the ticket agent hold up a hand against the man in the sports coat. He was slightly younger than me, maybe late twenties. He ignored the ticket agent, choosing to scan the cabin instead. Our eyes met. Instantly, he looked away, finding the water first, then the sky. Engines roared to life, and the ferry took off at cruising speed.

If I had to guess, I’d say the man was a cop.

The rest of the passengers were watching me. I turned and sat in my seat. Now I was properly covered in sweat. I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning, I saw a deckhand wearing a blue East River Ferry T-shirt. He gestured for me to approach him. Wiping sweat into my hair, I got up from the seat and nodded. He beckoned me out of the cabin. Beside the cabin doors was a set of steps leading to the open-top deck. A red and white painted chain blocked off the steps. The deckhand unhooked it and then relocked the chain as I made my way up the steps. The ferry lurched as it hit full speed, and if I hadn’t been hanging on to the railing, I would’ve fallen. I could smell the river, that mixed odor of freshness, salt, and sweet decay.

The top deck was small, with only a handful of benches. A man in a gray
raincoat stood at the end of the deck, the wind licking his hair. No one else up top. He turned as I approached. A slender man in his fifties with sharp cheekbones and wild blue eyes. His hair had been blond, but up close I could see it was now a fawny-gray color. Black suit under the raincoat. The motion of the ferry made my stomach feel uneasy. He took the nearest seat, and I sat down beside him.

When he spoke, I noticed his accent had a Southern edge to it. Not Deep South, but not far off it.

“My name is Albert Frost. Good to meet you, Counselor,” he said, holding out a hand.

I took it. The skin was hard but loose with age. This guy had worked for a living a long time ago. A pale strip on the middle finger of his left hand said he’d been married until very recently. The divot of white skin from the gold band that the wearer had rarely removed had not yet settled into its former smooth line. Maybe at his age it never would.

“Sorry we had to meet here. I was expecting to sit down with you and enjoy a cone. But you came with a tail. We had to shake him before we spoke. In many ways, it’s a good thing somebody followed you here.”

“Why is that?”

“It means you and I are both pissing up the right tree.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

He smiled, looked out over the water. The last of the day’s sun was licking the glass towers on Wall Street.

“Sure you understand, smart fellah like you. And I’m here to fill in some blanks. See, I want to be friends. I want to help you out, and in return you’ll be real neighborly and do us a favor.”

“What kind of favor do you want?”

“Oh, we’ll get to that. Right now you’re the one who needs help.”

“I’m just fine, thanks. I don’t need any help.”

“Come on, don’t play me. If you didn’t need help, you wouldn’t have come running like you did. You want to know what really happened to Chilli. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Like if you haven’t guessed it already, you’re in a whole shitload of trouble, son.”

Chapter Five

I’d been in tight spots before. The kind that can get you killed. I thought all of that was behind me. When I gave up the life of a hustler, the short cons, the insurance fraud, even taking the odd shortcut in a poker game, I’d imagined that things would be a lot calmer and safer. I’d hardly ever used married guys in my crew. A loved one is powerful leverage when you’re sitting in a cell and the cops are pressuring you to snitch. Back then I didn’t allow myself to get attached to anyone. Besides, it wasn’t an entirely selfless act. Some of my favorite marks were drug dealers. If they figured out they’d been conned, I didn’t want anyone I cared about to get caught up in a reprisal. Dealers carried a lot of cash—and couldn’t use it until it was clean. Conning them was pretty easy. It was making sure they didn’t know they’d been conned that was the hard part. Eventually I came up with a con that covered me. It was all about a frog and a horse.

Every couple of years I got a friendly, local, off-track bookie to give me fifty cents on the dollar on all bets placed on a particular horse running in the Kentucky Derby.

It took a couple of months to set up, but the payoff was phenomenal. I bought weed once a week, regular, from a couple of gangbangers, and eventually we got to know each other and we got to hanging out a little bit. I didn’t smoke. I flushed the product. Over time I spent maybe a grand on middle-grade weed just to get to know these guys. Three days before the Triple Crown event, I’d pull up at their corner and buy double my usual. They’d ask me where I got the dough. I told them I got cash for making a special delivery, and on the passenger seat beside me, I had a cardboard box full of holes. The guys are curious and ask to see what’s inside. So I show them. Inside the box is a frog.

I tell them it’s a Water Tree Frog from South America. It came off a ship this morning, and I need to drive it to Louisville for the Derby. They have no idea what I’m talking about, so I take them for lunch and lay it all out. If the frog is stimulated, it excretes a slime. That slime is a dermorphin—a drug that when injected makes horses both impervious to pain and hyperactive. The Racing Commission do random drug testing on horses. But they can only test for known illegal substances. The more exotic the stimulant, the greater the chance they won’t test for it. I tell the dealers how cobra venom was used for years for the same purpose but that nothing compares to this slime—in short, this frog produces untraceable guaranteed Derby winners.

After a while I pay for lunch and leave.

A few hours later I call the guys from a pay phone in the 86th Precinct. Spin them a line that PD pulled me over and got a hit on an outstanding warrant. And the cops got my dope. I’m going to be sitting in a police cell for a day. The frog is at my apartment and I can’t make the drive to Louisville in time for the race. Can they drive the frog to Louisville for a grand a piece? There’s five thousand bucks on the dresser in my apartment beside the frog, and I want them to go to Lucky’s and throw it all on our doped horse. I tell them that the bet has to be made in Lucky’s because they have the best price for the horse—seventy-five to one. The guys get to talking, telling their bosses and all their friends.

Before five o’clock that day, Lucky has taken bets totaling three hundred grand on the worst horse in Kentucky.

After a ten-hour drive, the guys get picked up on the outskirts of Louisville by the Highway Patrol. The cops don’t find any drugs or weapons, and this pisses them off. So the cops take the frog and let it go in the marshes. I’d never seen it myself, but I hear from the
cops who do this for me that the sight of two drug dealers from the Bronx frantically searching for a frog in the bayou is one of the funniest things you’ll ever see.

The frog doesn’t make it to the race, the horse comes last, and they lose money, I lose money, and it’s all down to the dealers themselves. One time, a guy from the Diablos felt so bad about losing my frog that he came by my apartment and refunded my five grand. It took it, and a hundred and fifty grand from Lucky’s, who was only too happy to take huge bets on a horse that was so bad, nobody in their right mind would bet on it.

Hardest part of the whole thing was catching the frogs from Long Island in the first place.