by Ray Celestin
He got out of the car and the cold wind nipped at his skin, burned the inside of his nose. He stepped into the field where he and Ida had chased the men. The snow had frosted into ice, made him slip, but at least it saved his feet from sinking into the black butter of the field.
After a while he could see the airport in the distance, the spindly metal towers poking up into the white sky, the blur of the fences, the lights scattered on the frosty ground like fallen fruits. He could see the parking lot and the entrance. There were still police vehicles there, tiny figures milling about. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t extended their search beyond the limits of the airport. There’d been a good amount of snowfall to cover their tracks, but still he felt exposed, the murderer returning to the scene of the crime.
When he was just a few yards into the field the peace was shattered by a rumble overhead, and a few seconds later, a plane was roaring through the air above him, so close it wasn’t quite believable. He looked up at its great smooth belly, white and encrusted with ice, leaving behind it a jet-fuel haze that shimmered in the sky. The image of a whale sprang to mind, leaping out of the sea. He watched the plane as it dipped towards the airport, landed and nestled itself amongst the twinkling lights of the runway.
He carried on walking and came to a stretch of ground that was covered by a murder of crows, strutting about, pecking the frost. And there amongst them he found the body. It lay face down, covered in as much frost as the rest of the field, so easy to miss, even from just a few yards away. He kneeled and pulled it free from the frost and there was a great cracking sound, and the body tumbled over onto its back. The crows rose off the soil, spiraled into the air, squawking pell-mell, then after a few seconds, resettled on the ground like a crashing wave.
Gabriel stared at the man. His face was white from the cold and fixed into a grimace. He had a ruddy complexion beneath the white film, a nose broken many times, short, wiry yellow hair. A blocky figure. The exit wound was like a great black cave where the man’s heart should have been. A wedding ring on his finger. Gabriel guessed he was in his early forties. He didn’t recognize him.
Who had killed the man? Had Gabriel fired the fatal bullet or had Ida? A rush of guilt ran through him. For all his years as a gangster, cleaning up other men’s crimes, he was not a killer.
He rose, grabbed the body by the ankles and dragged it behind him, like he was pulling a wheel barrow. The ground was too hard to dig a grave. The body itself was too stiff and frozen to disfigure here, to remove the teeth and hands and make a mess of the face so that it couldn’t be identified. He knew all this from his days as a night undertaker. Here he was after all these years, having to dispose of a body, back to square one.
When he was at the edge of the field another plane roared past, another soft white belly of a whale. He wondered what the passengers staring out of the windows must have thought, seeing a man dragging a body across a field, leaving a trail in the frost. Welcome to New York.
Soon he could see the car, peeking out from behind a hedge. He left the body a few yards from the car, checked no one was around, then moved it to the road and hauled it into the trunk. He got inside, sparked the ignition and prayed to God he could start the car a second time.
It started. He reversed around and headed off away from the airport, thinking of what to do with the body. When he’d gone a couple of miles, he pulled over, went to the trunk and opened it up. Now he had the time, he searched the man’s belongings. There was nothing on him but a pack of cigarettes, some matches, and a wallet. The wallet contained a few small bills, a studio shot of a woman, and a membership card to a boxing gym. It had the man’s name on it. Gabriel knew the gym. It was a Mob place, run by John Bova. The rat in Costello’s organization, the pimp at Costello’s the morning he’d been given the job of finding the money. He thought of the girl from Bova’s stable who’d been cut up by Faron. And now one of Bova’s goons had been sent to kill Gabriel.
Bova and Faron and Genovese.
And maybe now Costello too.
Gabriel wiped the wallet down, slipped it back into the man’s pocket, closed the trunk, got back in the car. He’d hoped to find some clue on the body that would lead him to Faron and the money. With the money he could get Costello back on side, and maybe leave town without the whole Mob after him. But it wasn’t to be.
He’d messed it all up. Costello and Genovese would be coming after him, and on top of that the auditors would deliver the racetrack accounts later that day, and Gabriel would have Anastasia to deal with, too. There’d be no clean break now. The escape plan he’d spent all those years devising lay in tatters. What life would they have now, forever on the run? He’d always tried to do right by Sarah, get her to Mexico where they could enjoy a semblance of normality. All he’d ended up doing was ripping the last shreds of normality away from her.
He struggled against the despair that was rising up in him, threatening to engulf him. He couldn’t let his failure – complete and irreversible – sink him. He still had to dispose of the body, find Sarah and get her out of town. He lit a cigarette and tried to place himself on a map in his mind, looked around. A memory surfaced. A farmhouse a few miles from where he thought he was. Just off the road on the way back to New York. He started up the car and headed off.
When he arrived he wasn’t sure if it was the same farm or not. It had been so many years, and most of the times he’d visited he’d done so in the dead of night. But when he drove past the front fence, he saw that the name on the sign above the gates was the same.
He drove in, pulled up in front of a sprawling wooden farmhouse flanked on either side by barns. Two men came out of the left-hand barn and stared. When he asked after the farmer he used to know, he was told that the man was dead, but one of the men there was the man’s son, and he remembered Gabriel and the old family business. They moved the body out of the trunk and the man’s son said he would take care of it. Gabriel paid him, and the man’s son took the money without saying thanks.
Then Gabriel reversed out of the farmyard and got back on the road. He needed to get back to New York to pick up Sarah then get out of there again as fast as he could, before one of the men who’d been sent after him killed them both.
He pulled up to the intersection with the highway, and was about to merge onto it when a truck rattled past, shattering the peace. He braked. Let it pass. It was a juggernaut with Florida plates. On its side was the logo of a distribution company, a cartoon flamingo painted an intensely artificial pink. Gabriel watched the giant pink flamingo fly past, watched it disappear, garish against the wintery, crystalline colors of the landscape.
He thought of Benny, of flamingos following him around. He almost started laughing. It was only then he noticed the sun had cracked the ice in the sky and dampness lay across the fields. He stared at the empty road in front of him, checked his watch, put the car into gear, and floored it back to the city.
51
Thursday 13th, 8.44 a.m.
Ida sat in the waiting room feeling like an ocean of black water was pressing down on her. She looked up and saw the policeman in the seat opposite her had fallen asleep. And here she was, alone, with a .38 that was half out of rounds.
She wondered how long the surgery would take, how long till she found out if he was going to live. A bullet to the chest. The doctors had taken him into surgery. If it had hit his heart or lungs, it’d take a miracle for him to survive. She dry heaved, and the policeman woke up and looked at her.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
Ida nodded, wooziness sloshing about her head.
‘You want me to get you a bucket or something?’
She frowned at the mention of a bucket, then realized why he’d said it and shook her head.
‘I’m gonna get a water.’
She rose and swooned. The policeman caught her. He helped her upright.
‘You sure you’re OK?’
She nodded.
‘Don’t go too far,’
he said.
Ida teetered off towards the water cooler. She kept going, turned a corner, found the restrooms. They were filled with a harsh electric light that burned her eyes and an acrid smell of lemon bleach. She splashed cold water on her face and its chillness soothed her skin. She looked at herself in the mirror and the person who stared back might well have been a stranger.
She’d returned to Gabriel’s around seven. There had been no answer at the apartment. She’d spoken to the concierge. The man had palmed her off. She’d persisted. He told her there’d been a shooting out on 3rd Avenue. She raced round the corner, into the middle of a crime scene. She spoke to the passers-by who were gathered on the corner watching, the storekeepers, the newspaper boys. An old man had been shot in the early hours, had been taken to hospital.
She ran over to the police, asked if the victim had been identified as Michael Talbot. She told them she was a colleague. After twenty minutes of fruitless questions and answers from both sides, she was in a cop car being driven over to the hospital. All she’d learned was that Michael was still alive, and that he was the only casualty – there was no mention of Gabriel’s niece, or Faron, or anyone else.
When she got to the hospital, the doctors had told her Michael was in surgery. A delicate operation, they’d said. She asked if anyone had contacted the next-of-kin and was told Michael’s wife had been notified early that morning in Chicago and that she’d told them she’d catch the next train to New York.
They took Ida to the waiting room and when she checked the corridor leading to the operating theatres she was shocked to see there was no one guarding him, just a single policeman there to keep an eye on things. Hospitals weren’t safe. Even if Michael pulled through, they might come back. She’d sat down opposite the cop and waited, leaving only to go to the payphone a few times to call Carrasco. But he was nowhere to be found. She left messages. It would be her and the sleeping cop against whoever came to finish off the job.
She couldn’t help but imagine the worst – the doctor coming in to tell her that Michael was dead, that he’d lost too much blood, that there was an infection, a clot, that the bullet had punctured his lung, ripped through his heart, that she’d have to identify the body. She imagined how Annette would feel. She remembered the pit of despair she’d fallen into when her own husband had died. Anger filled her. She had to find Faron and bring him to justice. For Michael. For everything her friend had done for her, for everything he had taught her. She owed him.
She left the bathroom and walked back to the waiting room, turned a corner and saw two men heading towards the corridor that led to the operating theatres. There was something in the two men’s stride, in the look on their faces. They had cop written all over them, but what type of cop?
They reached the start of the corridor. Ida followed them, watched as they approached the swing doors that led to wherever it was the doctors were trying to save Michael’s life. She fumbled for her gun, pulled it from its holster. Pointed it at the backs of the two men.
‘Freeze,’ she shouted.
The two men spun about to look at her. They reached for their guns on instinct, then saw the .38 in her hands and stopped, confused by the sight of a woman holding a gun in a hospital waiting room. She heard gasps from the people behind her. She heard footsteps. The sleeping cop had woken up, was by her side. He looked from her to the two men.
One of the men addressed the beat cop.
‘We’re here from the DA’s,’ he said. ‘You want to tell us what the hell’s going on?’
The beat cop looked at Ida.
‘Ma’am, put down the gun,’ he said.
‘I want to see ID,’ she said.
The men gave the beat cop are you serious looks. The beat cop shrugged.
The men reached into their pockets, slowly, and pulled out their wallets, held up their badges.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked them.
‘They’re with me,’ said a familiar voice behind her.
Ida turned to see Carrasco walking up the corridor.
‘Put down the gun, Ida,’ he said. ‘We’re here to guard Michael.’
She almost burst into tears. She dropped her arms to her sides, shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She put the gun back in its holster. Carrasco hugged her and she felt the weight of black water shifting.
Carrasco said something to the two men and they strode off down the corridor, then Carrasco and Ida turned and went to sit in the waiting room. She looked around her and saw all the other people staring.
‘I thought they were here to kill him,’ she said.
‘He’s still in surgery, Ida,’ Carrasco said. ‘They’ll wait to see if he lives before they try again.’
She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m not thinking straight.’
‘You know what his status is?’
‘Bullet to the chest. That’s all they said. They’ve been operating for hours. It doesn’t look good.’
He took this in, nodded.
‘We’ve got this, Ida,’ he said. ‘You can go home if you want. Get some rest.’
At the mention of home she thought of Chicago and wanted to cry. She thought of her hotel room, and it seemed to her about as welcoming as the morgue.
‘I’ll stay,’ she said.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
She told him about Gabriel and the airport and Michael staying back to look after Gabriel’s niece. When she’d finished he gave her a funny look.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘There’s something else. It wasn’t just you and Michael they attacked last night. Tom too. Up in Rikers. He would’ve been killed if a guard hadn’t walked past. That’s where I’ve been this morning, the Rikers Island infirmary.’
Ida nodded, took this in. They’d planned the attacks all at the same time – Gabriel and Ida at the airport, Michael at the apartment, Tom in the jail.
‘How was he?’ Ida asked.
Carrasco shook his head. ‘Had a face like a balloon. But he’ll be fine. Thing is …’ He gave her a sorry look. ‘Thing is he’s going to change his plea. He figures if he pleads guilty they won’t try to attack him again, he might actually survive prison. Soon as his lawyer gets there they’ll make it official. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.’
Ida’s heart sank. A guilty plea would mean a plea hearing in front of the judge, admission of guilt, confession. It would be all but impossible to reverse. Once the plea hearing happened, Tom would be looking at forty years, best-case scenario.
Carrasco took some papers from his pocket.
‘The phone records from O’Connell’s old boarding house,’ he said. ‘Where he received the call from Cleveland last month.’
Ida glared at the papers.
‘What’s the point?’ she said. ‘It’s over. We’ve failed.’
52
Thursday 13th, 9.24 a.m.
Gabriel drove the stolen car all the way back to Manhattan, through snowfall that was getting heavier, was settling, even in the city. He reached the Upper East Side and drove around his block a few times to make sure no one was waiting for him. He’d get the passports, pick up Sarah, buy a new car and get the hell out of New York as quickly as possible, before the weight of all the five families came crashing down on him. If it hadn’t already.
He parked up a block from his building, checked his gun, got out, ran through the snow and up the steps. As soon as he was in the lobby he could tell something was wrong. The concierge looked at him with scared-rabbit eyes.
‘What?’ Gabriel asked.
‘There’s been a shooting.’
The concierge told him about a diversion with a telegram messenger in the middle of the night and a few minutes later the sound of gunfire and the messenger bolting, and an old guy in the street round the corner gunned down.
‘What about Sarah?’ Gabriel asked, heart racing.
‘I went up and checked the apa
rtment,’ the concierge said. ‘No one answered.’
Gabriel tried to think, tried to run the angles. Michael was shot in the street, meaning he might have gotten Sarah out of trouble.
‘Did a woman come here looking for me?’ Gabriel asked.
He described Ida to the concierge. The concierge nodded.
‘She came here and then she left,’ he said.
‘She leave a message?’
‘Sorry, Mr Leveson, no.’
‘OK,’ said Gabriel. ‘You don’t tell anyone you saw me here today. You got it?’
The concierge nodded. Gabriel ran over to the elevators, smashed the call button.
When he got to his floor, he took out his gun, pressed his ear to the door, listened. Silence. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, padded down the hallway, could sense something was off even before he reached its end. He paused again, listened. He could hear the traffic on the avenue below, meaning the windows had been left open.
He raised his gun. He spun round into the room. It was in disarray. Everything had been tossed. The paintings had been thrown onto the floor, the chairs and sofas had all been upended. Every piece of fabric and upholstery had been slashed through with knives. He stepped through the carnage, checked the kitchen, then the bedrooms, then the bathrooms, then the fire escapes.
Sarah was nowhere to be seen. Had she managed to get away? Or had Faron caught up with her? If she had escaped, he prayed she remembered everything he’d taught her – what to do in these situations, where to go, who to contact, how – God forbid – to shoot a gun. He needed to call Michael’s apartment to check if she was there, but he couldn’t do it from the apartment phone.
He stared at the destruction around him, thought of the staged break-in he had imagined as part of his plan to get out of town. Here it was, for real. But there would be no more clean break now. A life on the run, and it started today.
He checked the stash spots. They’d found two of the more obvious ones, the money and guns were gone. The other three were still intact. He took bills totaling twenty thousand dollars and an extra box of bullets. He prayed the intruders hadn’t got to the roof. He walked back down the corridor, said goodbye to the apartment. As he was stepping out, he noticed his mail among the debris on the floor by the front door. He paused. Sarah must have picked it up the previous day. He spotted an envelope, recognized the Doc’s handwriting. He picked it up, took a letter out and read it.