Angel

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘I don’t want you to get killed the way Dad did,’ she persisted.

  ‘I know… Funny about Dad, when you think about it. He was just a plain old garden variety detective, doing a standard job at the Seventeenth, minding his own business so to speak, and he went and got himself killed, and at that by accident—’

  ‘By the Mafia you mean,’ she cut in.

  ‘Ssssh, keep your voice down,’ Kevin said swiftly, warily glancing around, while knowing full well there was no real reason to do so. After all, this was a well-known and respectable mid-town establishment on the East Side, just off First Avenue and a stone’s throw away from posh Sutton Place. Still, he couldn’t help himself. Being cautious was a habit he had honed to astonishing perfection over the thirteen years he had been with the police; that was the reason he only ever sat with his back to the wall, facing the door, when he was in a public place. He could not afford to be taken by surprise from behind, not ever, not in his job.

  Leaning forward, bending over the candle in its red glass container, bringing his head closer to hers, Kevin went on, ‘Supposedly Dad was taken out by the Mafia, but there’s never been any real proof, and I’ve never been absolutely sure of that myself. Nobody has, not even Jerry Shaw, his partner. And let’s face it, the Mafiosi don’t make a habit of shooting cops, for Christ’s sake; it’s kinda bad for their business, if you get my drift. Look, they much prefer to neutralize cops, you know, get them on the pad—on the take. Wiseguys feel easier dispensing cash not coffins.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘A dishonest detective is more valuable to them than a dead one… that spells trouble.’

  ‘You betcha it does.’

  ‘Even so, Kevin, I do wish you’d come in from the outside. Couldn’t you get yourself a desk job?’

  Her brother threw back his head and roared, obviously highly amused by the sheer absurdity of her suggestion.

  ‘Oh Rosie, Rosie,’ he gasped at last in a strangled voice, as the laughter began to subside, ‘I could, but I won’t. You see, I don’t want to, honest I don’t. What I actually do for a living is the centre of my life. Jesus, Rosie, it is my life.’

  ‘You take your life in your hands every day of the week, Kev, hunting down murderers, crooks, criminals, and drug-dealers, who are the worst, to my way of thinking. They’re certainly the most dangerous—violent, brutal.’

  Kevin was silent.

  She pressed, ‘Well, they are, aren’t they?’

  ‘Damned right they are, and you know how I feel about those fucking bastards!’ he exclaimed harshly, although he kept his voice contained, trying to be circumspect, having no wish to draw attention to himself.

  After a moment’s pause, he said, ‘Listen to me, Rosie, almost all crime centres around narcotics these days. And I loathe and detest drug-dealers—all cops do. They’re the scum of the earth, dealing death around the clock. They’re even killing little kids now for profit, selling crack and coke at the school gates, getting seven-year-olds hooked on dope. Seven-year-olds, Rosie, and to me that’s unconscionable! It’s my job to destroy these foul specimens, these… these… animals. My mission is to nail the sons of bitches to the cross, bring them to justice, get them behind bars, hopefully on a federal rap. That way, they’re in for five years minimum, usually much, much longer, depending on their crimes. And don’t forget, there’s no parole in the federal system, thank God. Personally, I wish we could lock ’em up and throw the keys away. For ever.’

  His mouth compressed into a grim line, and a hardness settled on his face, making him suddenly look much older than his thirty-four years. ‘Doing what I do is very important to me, Rosie. I think, I hope, I make a difference in this world, fighting crime the way I do. In any case, it’s the only way I know how to keep my sanity,’ he finished, reaching out, squeezing her long, slender hand resting on the red tablecloth.

  Rosie inclined her head, knowing exactly what he meant. It had been silly of her to think he would ever change his job. He was just like their father. The New York Police Department was the centre of his existence. In any case, Kevin had been on something of a crusade for the past six years—because of Sunny.

  Their beautiful Golden Girl was a victim. Bad drugs had scrambled her brains. That’s why she lay in a hospital bed in a mental home, catatonic, a lost soul. Lost to herself. Lost to them. Lost to Kevin, who had loved her so.

  Sunny would never recover, never be herself again, forever a vegetable, rotting in that place in New Haven, where her two sisters and her brother had been forced to put her out of their own desperation. It was costing them a fortune to keep her in the private home, but they had told Rosie they could not stand the thought of her being locked away in a state mental institution, and neither could she.

  She had always believed that Kevin and Sunny would marry, and they would have, if it hadn’t been for the drugs that had turned Sunny into a zombie. None of them knew how she got hooked on drugs in the first place, how she slid into such fateful abuse of them, or who had kept on supplying her. Somehow it had just happened. But the seventies and the eighties had been the drug decades, hadn’t they? Pot and hash, pills and poppers, uppers and downers, coke and skag, or smack, as Kevin called heroin. Some addicts were stupid enough to compound their habit by mixing drugs with booze, and inevitably that spelled death at some point in their already ruined lives.

  Perhaps Sunny Polanski would be better off dead than living the way she is today, Rosie thought, and felt a shiver trickle through her.

  Rosie had never been interested in drugs, had only ever once taken a few puffs on a joint years before, had instantly felt sick to her stomach, had wanted to throw up. Gavin had been furious with her for accepting the joint at the party they were attending together, and he had lectured her relentlessly about the danger of drugs for days afterwards. She had not needed to hear his dire warnings; she knew how dangerous drugs were. Poor Sunny hadn’t known and that was the tragedy.

  ‘You’re thinking about Sunny,’ Kevin said softly, breaking the silence, zeroing in on her thoughts as if he could read her mind.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Rosie admitted, hesitated briefly, then asked, ‘Have you been to see her recently, Kev?’

  ‘Three months ago.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Just the same. Nothing’s changed.’

  ‘I thought I might go to New Haven before I go back to Europe to—’

  ‘Don’t!’ he exclaimed sharply, and then shook his head, looking chagrined. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be snappish, but you mustn’t go see Sunny. She won’t even know you’re there, Rosie, and you’ll only upset yourself. It’s just not worth it.’

  Merely nodding, making no response, knowing it was better not to argue with him, Rosie decided that perhaps he was right. Maybe it would be better not to visit Sunny as she had planned. What would it mean to her, poor thing? Sunny wouldn’t even know she was in the same room, and anyway, there was nothing to be gained, nothing she could actually do for her old friend to make her existence better. In all truth, she would only create yet another worry for herself, if she saw Sunny in the pitiful state she was in today. It would be another problem she was unable to solve, and she had enough of those as it was.

  Taking a sip of water, Rosie straightened up in the chair and gave Kevin a faint smile.

  He smiled back. But there was a sadness in his smile and a great deal of pain in his eyes. Rosie knew the pain was a reflection of a deep sorrow that ran through to the very core of him. And it was a sorrow that was almost unendurable. She suppressed a sigh, hurting inside for her brother.

  Yet she also knew that Kevin was resilient and courageous and would keep going, no matter what. Continuing to look at him, she realized that his heartache about Sunny had done nothing much to mar his looks, and neither had the life he led as an undercover cop. Her brother was the most handsome of men, with the kind of glamour usually associated with a movie star; he was husky in build, strong and ve
ry masculine.

  This evening, Kevin’s resemblance to their mother was very marked. Moira Madigan, who had come from Dublin to New York as a young girl, had been born a Costello. ‘I’m Black Irish,’ she had constantly told them as children, sounding very proud of her heritage. According to their mother, the Costellos were descended from one of the Spanish sailors who had been wrecked off the coast of Ireland at the time of Elizabeth I, the Tudor Queen, when King Philip of Spain had sent a great armada of ships to invade England. Some of the Spanish galleons had foundered on the rocky coastline of the Emerald Isle during a violent storm, and the crews had been rescued by Irish fishermen. Many of the survivors had settled in Ireland, and it was a Spanish sailor called Jose Costello who had been the founding father of the Costello clan. At least, this was the story their mother told, and they had been brought up to believe it was the absolute truth. As far as they were concerned, it was.

  And certainly no one could deny that Kevin Madigan was Black Irish since he had Moira’s raven hair and sparkling eyes as black as obsidian.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Rosie; a penny for your thoughts.’

  ‘I was thinking how much you looked like Mom tonight, Kevin, that’s all.’

  ‘Mom would have been so proud of you, proud of your great success as a costume designer, and so would Dad. I remember how Mom used to encourage you with your fashion drawings and sewing when you were still a little kid.’

  ‘Yes, I do too,’ Rosie said, ‘and they would have been proud of us both. I guess we turned out all right… we’re healthy, sane, doing what we want to do and being successful at it, and that’s what they wanted for us. Dad would have been especially proud of you. You’re carrying on the Madigan tradition as a fourth-generation cop. I wonder, will there be a fifth-generation Madigan to follow in Dad’s footsteps and yours?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rosie regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, ‘Isn’t it about time you started thinking about getting married, having kids?’

  ‘Who’ll have me?’ he shot back, laughter reverberating in his voice. ‘I can’t offer a woman much, not with my job and living the way I do.’

  ‘Don’t you have any girl friends, Kevin?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘I wish you did.’

  ‘Look who’s talking. What about you? There you are, sitting in that ridiculous situation, and for all these years. Gavin’s right, it is time you sorted out the mess in France.’

  ‘Is that really what Gavin said?’ Rosie asked, staring hard.

  He nodded. ‘It sure is. Gavin thinks you’re wasting your life, and so do I. You’d be better off moving on now, coming back to the States to live. And maybe here at home you might find a decent guy—’

  ‘Talking of France,’ she cut in peremptorily, ‘are you coming over for Christmas? You promised.’

  ‘I know I did, but I’m not sure that I can…’ His voice faltered, and fortunately he was saved the trouble of making a string of excuses as the waitress appeared at their table. She carried a tray laden with dishes of the Irish stew they had ordered, and was all set to serve them dinner. Glancing at her, Kevin flashed her a warm smile. ‘And if it’s not the lovely mavourneen with our food,’ he said, radiating his special brand of Irish charm, a charm most women found irresistible.

  Watching him, Rosie thought: What a waste of a beautiful man.

  SEVEN

  The bar was called Ouzo-Ouzo and it was located on the Bowery not far from Houston Street.

  The neighbourhood was not particularly salubrious, but then Kevin Madigan had grown accustomed to the disreputable in his four years as an undercover cop. It seemed to him that he spent half his time in murky hideaways such as this, waiting for every kind of lowlife to bring him what he wanted—namely information of some kind or another.

  He mused about this situation now as he nursed his beer in a bosky corner of the little Greek hole-in-the-wall on the outer fringes of SoHo and Greenwich Village. He was sick to death of places like this, there was no getting away from that fact. On the other hand, such places were essential to him. Where else could he have his meetings with the sleazy characters he had to do business with?

  It was exactly a week ago tonight that Rosie had suggested he come in from the cold, get himself a desk job with NYPD. He had laughed uproariously that night, but now he wondered if she might be right. This thought hardly had time to take hold before he dismissed it. A desk job would bore him. Worse, it would kill his soul.

  When he was out on the street his adrenaline pumped like crazy. He was full of vitality and on top of it all, ready to go the whole nine yards, capable of dealing with anyone and anything that came flying at him. He knew that any job other than the one he had would do him irreparable damage, and not even his sister could convince him otherwise.

  But maybe some sort of change was in order. That was one of the reasons he was sitting here at seven o’clock on Saturday night, already running late for his uptown date with his uptown girl, waiting for Neil O’Connor.

  Neil was a special kind of guy, an old buddy, and a former undercover cop. He was still with the NYPD, but was now attached to the police department’s Crime Intelligence Division, which specialized in organized crime.

  Earlier in the week, Neil had unexpectedly called him, and had asked if he would be interested in transferring over to the Crime Intelligence Division.

  Much to his own astonishment, he had found himself saying that he might be, and he had agreed to meet Neil to discuss it. For the past few years he had been part of an NYPD Strike Force working closely with the FBI and the DEA, targeting Colombian and Asian drug-traffickers. He had been highly successful in this job, putting some of the most notorious drug kingpins away for years; they would be very old men before they were out on the street again.

  Kevin glanced at his watch; out of the corner of his eye he saw Neil coming in through the front door, and raised his hand in greeting. Neil responded with a nod, striding forward.

  His old friend was tall, well built, sandy-haired, with the brightest of blue eyes and masses of freckles on his wide Irish face.

  Kevin stood up when Neil reached the table.

  They shook hands, slapped each other on the back with the affection and camaraderie of good old buddies who had been through a lot together.

  When they drew apart, Neil glanced at his half-finished glass of beer. ‘Want another, Kevin? Or something stronger?’

  ‘A beer’s fine, thanks. A Bud Light,’ Kevin answered, and sat down.

  Neil moved over to the bar, came back a second later carrying a glass in each hand. After putting them on the table he took off his overcoat, threw it on an adjacent chair, and seated himself next to Kevin. Lighting a cigarette, Neil inhaled deeply, then plunged right in, keen to get straight to the point. ‘I want you in my unit, Kevin. Need you. Badly. And immediately. If you say you’re in then I’ll get you transferred practically overnight.’

  Leaning forward slightly, fixing his eyes on Kevin, Neil continued with sheathed ferocity, ‘Destroying the Mob is a worthwhile cause, the kinda challenge you like. And I can sure promise you action, and plenty of it. So, whaddya say?’

  For a moment Kevin did not respond.

  He simply sat there, staring back at Neil, weighing his words carefully. Bringing his head closer to his friend’s, he said, ‘You didn’t explain much on the phone the other day, Neil.’

  ‘What’s there to explain?’ Neil eyed him curiously, raised his brows, added succinctly, ‘The name of the unit says it all, kid.’ He sighed, muttered, ‘We’re after the Mob, want to get as much on ’em as we can.’

  ‘I realize that. What I meant was, would I be working undercover? And who specifically are you zeroing in on? Or aren’t you? Are you after the Mob in general?’

  ‘Answering your first question, you don’t have to go undercover if you don’t want to, but I’d prefer it if you did. You’re the best of the very best. To answer your
second question, although we’re focusing on all the crime families in New York, at this particular time we’re making a real effort to bring down the Rudolfos.’

  Kevin let out a long, low whistle on hearing this name. There were six organized crime families operating in New York: Gambino, Colombo, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Rudolfo. The latter organized crime family was the shrewdest and the most powerful organization in the American Mafia. The Don, Salvatore Rudolfo, was considered by police and mobsters alike to be one of the greatest dons there had ever been in the annals of organized crime. He was capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses, the most respected and revered, and apparently the don to whom every other don on the Eastern Seaboard kowtowed.

  Kevin exclaimed, ‘Jesus, Neil, that’s mighty ambitious! The Rudolfo family have proven to be almost impregnable for years now. It’s been pretty damned hard to get anything really spectacular on them, anything really incriminating, that’s why they’re so damned strong. It’s going to be pretty tough—’

  ‘Maybe not as tough as you think!’ Neil cut in sharply. ‘We’ve made a breakthrough, managed to infiltrate the Rudolfo family. We’ve put an undercover cop in there, and that’s where you come in, Kev. You’re gonna be in the drug business with ’em. Our inside man is gonna introduce you, vouch for you, stick close to you. If you’ll work undercover, that is.’

  ‘The Rudolfos have always denied they traffic in drugs, and continue to deny it.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, Kevin! All Mafiosi deal drugs, whatever their names, and you know it as well as I do. The Rudolfos are no better than any of their… their… brethren!’ Neil exclaimed vehemently in a voice grown suddenly acerbic.

  He gave Kevin one of his hard, pointed stares. ‘You’re an expert in drugs and the drug business, and you’ve made a lotta busts. I need your expertise, your contacts, your special ability to blend into their scummy world, to move around with ease and confidence in it. So, give me an answer, kid.’