The Heart of an Assassin (21 page)

As Nick exited the north-side entrance to the
station, he pushed several people down on the stairs as he ran into
the street hailing a cab. The cab screeched to a halt, Nick jumped
in, pulled out his gun, and aimed it at the driver. “Get going,
this is a police emergency,” he threatened the driver.

The driver sped off as Tyler reached the top
of the Canal Street entrance in time to see him speed away. “Fuck!”
Tyler screamed. Less than a minute later, Tyler was joined by
Sheila and Eric. All three stared at the multitude of cabs heading
down Canal Street.

Back at the courthouse, the news that the
judge had been killed reached the Giordanos’ ears. As the Supreme
Court Justice took his chair, he motioned both lawyers to the
bench.“Is it true?” the judge asked the prosecution lawyer.

“Yes, Your Honor. My witness was killed by
someone his client hired,” he told the judge.

“Your Honor, I object to his insinuations,”
the defense attorney almost shouted to the judge.

“I don’t doubt you do. May I suggest you
lower your voice? It would be in your best interest,” ordered the
judge.

“Yes, Your Honor,” replied the lawyer for the
defense.

“Do you have any other witnesses?” the judge
asked the prosecutor.

“No. No, Your Honor,” he replied.

“Then, in that case return to your seats,”
the judge ordered, waving them away. “Based on the information and
facts I have before me now, I have no other alternative but to
dismiss all charges against Ms. Felicia Giordano and her brother,
Mr. Fabio Giordano. I do this unwillingly but knowing full well
it’s only a matter of time before they are before me again and
hopefully, we will be able to put them where they belong,” the
judge said, staring at the Giordanos and slamming the gavel down,
demonstrating his displeasure.

The courthouse erupted with a mixture of
chaos with flashes from photographers, reporters rushing to the
front of the courtroom, and people either cheering or screaming
obscenities.

Felicia and Fabio were mobbed as they exited
the courthouse to their awaiting limousine. Felicia was overjoyed
and relieved. She was smiling from ear to ear.

As they descended the courthouse steps, they
heard a scream.“You fuckin’ bastards!” Then a gunshot rang out.
Adriana Romano had a gun and was firing at Felicia and Fabio as she
came up the courthouse steps toward them. Fabio was hit in the
abdomen.

A police officer instantly fired at Adriana,
hitting her in the chest as she fired a second round. The shot went
wild hitting one of the Giordano lawyers in the head. Adriana fell
backward onto the pavement. Raising her gun to fire a third shot,
an officer took her down with a round to the head.

“Fabio, no! No!” screamed Felicia as she
tried to clutch her brother. She was pulled away as the police
administered first aid. Within seconds, an ambulance could be heard
rushing to the scene. Minutes later, Fabio was in the ambulance,
with Felicia at his side, heading to Bellevue Hospital amidst an
entourage of police cars with sirens blaring.

July
11, 1984

Tyler, Eric, and Sheila arrived at the
courthouse in time to see the ambulance pull away with Fabio and
Felicia. At first, Tyler thought it was for the judge but then saw
a covered body laying on the ground at the foot of the courthouse
steps and another body half up the stairs.

“What the hell happened here, Captain?” Tyler
asked O’Malley.

After John explained what had happened, Tyler
filled him in on the events at the Canal Street train station.
“Though I shot him almost point blank, we didn’t find any blood at
the bottom of the stairway or anywhere down the path he took,”
Tyler reported.

“He probably had a bulletproof vest,” the
captain responded.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Tyler said.

“We put an all-points bulletin out on him,
asking for any cab driver who might have picked up a police officer
in the downtown area next to the Canal Street station to call
dispatch immediately,” Sheila told O’Malley.

“Good thinking. Maybe we’ll get lucky,”
O’Malley told her.

“Where’d they take the Giordanos?” Tyler
asked.

“Over to Bellevue Hospital,” the captain
answered. “There’s not much more we can do here. Tyler, Eric, you
guys take the rest of the day off, and I’ll see you at the precinct
tomorrow,” O’Malley told them.

As they were about to take their leave, Tyler
turned to Sheila and Sam and nodded his good-bye and walked away.
Sheila had been with Tyler through a lot, and all he did was nod
and walk away. “What’s his story?” she asked Eric as he approached
to say his good-byes.

“Don’t really know. That’s just the way he
is,” Eric told her as he hugged both Sam and Sheila with a warm
good-bye. “You guys take care of yourselves,” Eric told them.

“Take care of him,” Sam told Eric.

“Yeah, you got it.” He too walked away after
Tyler while pointing at them.

Tyler jumped into the squad car that was
provided for them and was about to take off as Eric jumped into the
passenger side. “Hey man, were you going without me?” Eric asked
him.

“Sorry. I figured I’d run over to Bellevue
and ask the Giordanos who it was they hired to kill the judge,”
Tyler told Eric.

“Really? And do you think they are going to
tell you?” Eric asked him.

“Hey, it won’t hurt to try,” Tyler responded
as he hit the gas and took off with the sirens accompanying
them.

Nick had managed to elude his pursuers and
was now headed uptown toward Grand Central Station on Forty-Second
and Park Avenue. The cab driver heard a call come over the radio
for anyone who might have picked up a police officer but simply
ignored it, afraid he might upset his passenger. A block from the
station, Nick ordered the cab driver to stop, reached into the
attaché case, and pulled a few hundred dollar bills.

“You listen and listen good. Here is a few
hundred dollars, and all you have to do is tell your dispatcher
that you picked me up and dropped me off at Penn Station. Do you
understand?” Nick asked him.

“Yes, sir. I don’t want any problems.
Whatever you say,” the driver responded nervously. With that, Nick
got out of the cab and headed toward Grand Central Station.

Entering the station Nick headed for the
nearest bathroom where he would discard the uniform for the clothes
he was wearing underneath. Within seconds, his mission was
complete. After removing the bulletproof vest, he pulled his shirt
open to reveal a black-and-blue bruise the size of a baseball.
Fuckin’ kid almost killed me. I bet you he would have caught that
ball after all, Nick thought to himself, smiling. Yes, Nick
remembered who Tyler was.

As the cab driver who drove Nick pulled away,
he called into the dispatcher. “Hey, it was me. I picked up the
cop,” he screamed into the microphone.

“Hey, Leroy, is that you?” the dispatcher
asked.

“Yeah, man. It’s me. I picked him up at Canal
Street and dropped him off at Grand Central Station,” He shouted.
“Hey, this motherfucker is a bad dude. Told me to tell you I
dropped him off someplace else. That’s what he said.”

Two minutes later, the dispatcher relayed the
information to the police who immediately dispatched several cars
to Grand Central Station. The police at the station were alerted to
be on the lookout for anyone fitting Nick’s description. They were
told to check the bathrooms as they suspected he would try to
change out of his police uniform.

Both Tyler and Eric missed the call about
Nick being at Grand Central Station as they just left their squad
car and were entering Bellevue Hospital’s emergency ward. Sheila,
Sam, and their captain were still at the courthouse when the call
came in. John O’Malley rushed to them and gave them an update as
they all jumped into one of the cars and headed uptown.

Nick finished removing the uniform, dumping
it into the closest garbage can and walked out. The station was
crowded with midday commuters as Nick headed to a newsstand to pick
up the paper and some candy.

A crowd was gathering in front of an overhead
television as news of the downtown shooting was being aired. Nick
walked over and almost choked when he heard one of the Giordanos
had been shot. Someone trying to take money out of my mouth, he
thought to himself.

When Nick heard that the Giordanos were taken
to Bellevue Hospital, he immediately headed for the nearest exit.
As he approached it, he saw police cars screeching to a halt in
front of the station. He kept his cool and continued in his path.
As Sheila hit one of the revolving doors, Nick hit the same one
going in the opposite direction. She glanced up for a second and
met his eyes as they passed each other separated by only an inch of
glass. Sheila entered the station and froze. Turning, she screamed,
“It’s him!” She pointed toward the door.

Pulling her revolver out, she rushed the door
and was out on the other side in seconds, followed by her other
colleagues.“Shit! He was just here,” she shouted.

Nick moved as quickly as possible. Exiting
through the revolving doors and crossing the street, running as he
kept low below the top of the parked cars so no one could see him.
When he reached the corner of East Forty-Second and Madison Avenue,
he turned left and headed toward Forty-First Street where he hailed
a cab to Bellevue Hospital. It would be much easier to get them at
the hospital. After all, they do allow visitors, Nick thought to
himself.

In the meantime, Fabio was in the operating
room while Tyler and Eric confronted Felicia in the waiting room.
Other than Felicia and two of her soldiers, the room was empty.
Anyone previously there was probably cleared out by the Giordanos’
men. Sitting there with her face in her hands and blood on her
clothes, she looked like an average person, weeping for a family
member.

Eric, feeling some sympathy, softened his
approach. “Sorry about your brother,” Eric told her. Tyler,
undeterred about how Felicia looked or felt, said, “Hope he dies
screaming.”

“Fuck off,” she said, looking up at him.

Two strong-looking men immediately approached
Tyler and Eric while grasping weapons concealed under their
jackets. Both Eric and Tyler pulled out their badges. Tyler shoved
his in their faces while his other hand gripped the handle of his
gun.

Eric looked at Tyler and nodded toward the
door. Tyler stepped back and headed out of the waiting room.

“Look, Ms. Giordano, what goes on between
your families is your business. You can kill yourselves off for all
we care. But that guy that killed the judge is a pro. I mean we
know he’s killed some of your own guys,” Eric told her. “Don’t be
foolish enough to think he wouldn’t take you or Fabio out.”

“Make your point, Officer,” Felicia told
him.

“Give him up and we will take him down,” Eric
told her.

Felicia thought about what Eric was saying.
“And what do I get out of this?” she asked him.

“You get to live another day, maybe,” he
said.

Eric knew that the Giordanos didn’t exactly
care for the man they hired to kill the judge. This much they got
out of Adriana before she clammed up.

“Let me talk to Fabio. I know where to find
you,” she told Eric. “Besides, I’ve never met him. I can’t even
tell you what he looks like.”

Tyler had left the waiting room and wandered
down the hallway into a nearby gift shop. As he browsed around, he
happened to see a newspaper with the picture of Nick on the corner
of the front page. The FBI was looking for this man. Tyler picked
up the paper, paid, and started walking back toward the waiting
room. It’s him, Tyler thought to himself.

Eric met him halfway back to the room when
Tyler showed Eric the picture in the paper. “Yeah, I know,” Eric
said.

“No, you don’t understand. I know this man,”
Tyler told him.

“What do you mean you know him?” Eric
asked.

“I know this man,” Tyler responded.

They both walked back to the waiting room and
took a couple of seats as Tyler tried to remember why this man was
so familiar and yet was such an enigma.

Felicia saw them looking at the paper and
asked about it. They told her that this was the man that killed the
judge.

“What?” she asked.

She grabbed the paper and stared at the
picture of Nick. Now, she knew.

They all sat there for about twenty minutes
without saying a word. Each caught up in their own thoughts when
all of a sudden Tyler jumped up. “Shit! I remember where I know him
from. This motherfucker was in my house!” he shouted at Eric.

“What? What do you mean in your house? When?”
Eric, now standing, asked Tyler.

“Shit! It must have been over twenty years
ago,” Tyler whispered.

“What are you talking about?” Eric asked,
staring at Tyler.

“I am telling you that this guy was in my
house when I was a kid. He had dinner in my house with me and my
mom some twenty years ago,” Tyler told Eric.

Felicia listened intently to what was being
said and wondered, could it really be true that this cop knew Nick?
What are the chances? This cop would have only been a kid twenty
years ago.

“He stayed in the apartment across from us.
My mom invited him to dinner the day he moved in,” Tyler went on
almost to himself rather than to Eric. “I never saw him again after
that. Except when he was on the sidewalk staring at me that day . .
. the day my mom was shot. I remember it as if it was
yesterday.”

All of the memories of that day came rushing
back to Tyler. Once again, he was reliving the incident as he
collapsed into the chair next to Eric. “I got to tell the captain,”
Tyler told Eric. With that, Tyler got up and headed out the door,
with Eric close behind him. They walked down the hallway toward a
pay phone located just down the hall, not noticing the doctor that
passed them in the hall.