by Blake Banner
“He told us Nelson had a poker night with his cousins. Every week they would get together, have some drinks, and play cards till the early hours. It was in a back room in a house off Randall Avenue in Hunts Point. It was just them. On this particular night they would have a stash of takings from the rackets. He didn’t know how much, but it would be several hundred grand. All we had to do was go in and pop ’em.”
“So what happened?”
“We got there at two thirty a.m., and the place is crawling with cops. Fuckin’ cops everywhere!” He turned to Dehan. “No offense. But there were. There were fucking cops all over the fucking place. Nelson was already dead.”
I finished my coffee. It was cold.
Dehan spoke my mind.
“Pro, you’ve brought us an awful long way to tell us practically nothing. How does this help us, and what do you want from us?”
“I’m coming to that.” He held up his hands like he was going to confess to something. “Those were not good times for us. We’d taken some bad knocks from the Feds, we’d lost some territory, there were thousands of fuckin’ immigrants coming in taking our business. They were bad times. So the Bronx right then was a vacuum…”
I glanced at Dehan. She’d picked it up too. Sam had used the same expression. Pro went on.
“There were other people interested in moving in on that territory. And one of the gangs that was up and coming at that time was the Chinese Triad. It was a long way from Chinatown, but they figured they could move in and control the action. There were Chinks seen there that night, and they were probably as keen to get rid of Nelson as we were. Why were they there? Why that night? Now…” He paused and took off his shades to look at me. “The one man who knows the answer, the one man who knows what happened that night, is Mick Harragan. And what I want, what Mr. Vincenzo wants, is Mick Harragan. Because I am goddamn sure that he set us up the first time, and he sold us out again the second time. And it just so happens that Mick fuckin’ Harragan disappeared the night Nelson was killed.”
“What do you mean he disappeared? He retired to Florida.”
“Did he? Have you tried to contact him there? Let me tell you, Stone, Mick Harragan ain’t in Florida. He ain’t nowhere. Mick Harragan has disappeared into thin air, along with Nelson’s stash.” He shrugged and pulled a face. “Maybe it was the Chinks, maybe it was Mick. Either way, we want Mick.”
“What do you mean, you want Mick? You think we are going to find him and hand him over to you?”
He looked at me with dead eyes and shook his head. “Just, when you find him, let the relevant authorities know. You understand me?” He grinned. “Just do your job, Detectives, and we will take care of everything else.”
Four
We were driven back to the airfield and landed back in LaGuardia by three in the afternoon. We didn’t talk much. Dehan was not exactly a chatterbox at the best of times, but on the flight back from Port Lavaca, she was more withdrawn than usual. I gave her her space and snatched a couple of hours’ sleep.
It was hot and humid as we crossed the parking lot. I opened the doors of the Jag, and we sat for a while letting it cool down. I pulled out my cell and called my contact at the bureau. We weren’t exactly friends, but we’d built up a good professional relationship over the years. I put it on speaker, placed it on the dash, and closed the door, indicating with my head that Dehan should do the same.
“John, how’s it going my friend? What can I do for you?”
“Bernie, I have a request. It’s a little sensitive and requires some discretion.”
“Name it. If I can do it, I will. You know that.”
“I need to find a retired NYPD detective. Until now there has been no indication of foul play, but certain facts are emerging in relation to a cold case, and I am beginning to wonder.”
“What’s his name?”
“Michael Harragan, from the 43rd precinct. Took early retirement about ten years ago.”
“No problem, I’ll sniff around. You can’t check this through your commander or your own files?”
“Like I said, Bernie, it’s sensitive.”
“Oh…” He was silent for a moment. “Anything we should know about?”
“I don’t know yet. But if it starts to look that way, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
I hung up. “I don’t need to tell you, not a word to the captain.”
Dehan’s voice was as tense as a bowstring. “You think he’s dead?”
I turned to look at her, but her face didn’t tell me a thing. I shook my head. “I don’t know what I think right now. But that slippery son of a bitch? I doubt it. My bet is he’s living large in Mexico or Brazil on the money he skimmed off the rackets in the Bronx.”
“If the Mob haven’t found him in ten years, he must be pretty good at covering his tracks. What if the bureau can’t help us?”
I nodded that I knew and said, “He had a partner, kind of weak, did what he was told. Loud mouth when Mick was around but kept to himself when he wasn’t…”
Dehan spoke in a flat voice. “His name is Jim Kirkpatrick. Everybody called him Kirk.”
I stared at the cars in the lot for a long while. Then I put my cell in my pocket and fired up the engine. As I headed toward the Grand Central Parkway, I said, “Don’t you think it’s time you told me?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell, Stone. My dad was Jewish. He was disowned by his family for marrying a Latina. My mom was Mexican. One of his uncles felt bad for him and gave him some money to start a business. So they set up a small café together on Garrison Avenue, near the corner of Faile.”
She was quiet for a while, watching the traffic through the window. After a moment, she smiled. It was a nice smile, unmarred by cynicism or sarcasm. “They were nice people, gregarious, outgoing, noisy, fun-loving, totally in love with each other. So they attracted a lot of customers. They made a go of it.”
“What happened?”
“I was fourteen. Nelson and his boys came looking for protection. They said Mom was a Latina and she owed them loyalty. My dad told them where to go. They said they’d be back. He called the cops, and Mick Harragan came round with his pal Kirk. He told my dad community relations were a very delicate balance in a neighborhood like the Bronx. That a Jew ‘shacking up’ with a Christian, and a Catholic at that, was the kind of thing that could upset a lot of people. He said my dad was lucky to be accepted as well as he was, and in order to avoid things getting ugly, the best thing he could do was pay up and keep his mouth shut.”
“So you have a personal issue with Mick.”
She shook her head. “No. It is what it is. Shit happens, and other inspiring clichés. There will always be sons of bitches like Mick in every profession. I joined the force because one day a good, decent couple like my parents will call the cops for help, and they’ll get me instead of that asshole. But I have no personal issue with Mick. He’s in the past.”
I glanced at her. She was as expressionless as ever. I said, “If there is more to it than that, I need to know.”
“So you can take me off the case?”
“No. So I can be aware of it.”
“There is no more to it than that. I moved on.” Then she added, with a twist of lemon, “I’m good at moving on.”
As we stepped into the precinct, she said, “You want me to check the databases for Kirkpatrick?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You hungry?” Neither of us had eaten on the flight. She said she was, and I took a walk down to the deli on the corner. When I got back, she had her ass on the hood of my car. I walked up to her and gave her her sandwich. I said, “You already knew where he lived, didn’t you, Carmen?”
She shook her head. “No. It was easy to find. You want to go now, or eat first?”
“I can eat and drive at the same time.”
James Kirkpatrick had moved to Northwest Yonkers. He’d obviously had some kind of supe
r pension plan I had never heard of. We took the I-95 and were there in just under a half hour. It was leafy and green in a way that suggested nothing bad ever happened there. You could drink martinis dry every evening without ever getting drunk, and children would always run laughing to school. Maybe that was true in Yonkers. I would never know. I couldn’t afford paradise.
He had a gray-blue clapboard house with Dutch gables that looked like something out of one of the darker episodes of The X-Files. I parked out front, and the slam of the car doors echoed across the empty, green lawns. A long path crossed his front garden, and we climbed the steps to the porch and rang the bell.
We waited long enough for Dehan to ring the bell a second time. Then we heard steps, and the door opened. He glanced at us and looked at me twice. He narrowed his eyes. “Stone, right? You’re from the 43rd. What’s up?”
“Hello, Kirk. Can we come in? We need to ask you a few questions.”
He hesitated, then kind of rushed his words. “Yeah! No! Sure! Of course, come on in…”
He stood back to allow us to pass. We stepped into a short passage with a coat stand. The passage opened out into a broad living area with wooden floors. Beyond it I could see an open-plan dining room-kitchen area. A flight of stairs on the left led up to the bedrooms and the bathrooms. I glanced back at the coat stand with one coat on it and said, “You live here alone, Kirk?”
“My wife’s at her mother’s…”
He stood in the hallway, looking at us and chewing his lip. I smiled. “It’s been a long time. You going to ask us to sit down?”
He looked at his watch. “It’s kinda late. What’s this about?”
I didn’t answer. We both watched him, waiting. Finally he said, “Yeah, sure. Where are my manners? Sit down, make yourselves comfortable. You want some coffee? A beer?”
I shook my head. “No, Kirk. Sit down. We have some questions for you.”
“Sure, whatever.”
He sat. Behind him was a bow window with net curtains, and through it I could see the street and my car. It was very still and very quiet. “Where is Mick?”
“Mick?”
I laughed. “You don’t remember Mick? He was your partner for fifteen years.”
“No! Yeah! Of course I remember Mick! We, we, we were partners! Like you said. I was just surprised at you asking me…”
“So where is he?” Dehan said.
He pulled a face. “We lost touch. He went to Miami.”
“No, he didn’t.”
He made like a goldfish and mouthed silently for a few seconds, then blurted, “I thought he did…”
Dehan said, “No, you didn’t.”
“Look, c’mon, guys! What can I tell you? I thought he went to Miami.”
I smiled sweetly and spoke reassuringly. “Okay, don’t get your panties in a tangle, Kirk. We need to talk to him, that’s all. It’s nothing serious, just a few loose ends we need to tie up.” He sighed. I smiled at Dehan. “We were just talking to an old pal of yours, weren’t we, Carmen? He said to send his regards. He’d love to catch up sometime, real soon.” Kirk now looked vaguely sick. “What was his name again?”
Dehan said, “Morry. You remember Morry, don’t you, Kirk? He said you and him and Mick were all real close back in the day. But you stopped answering his calls and hurt his feelings.” She looked at me, and her smile was kind of chilling. “What do you say, John. Should we call him and arrange a get-together?”
“No! No, listen! Stop!”
I said, “Your memory beginning to work?”
“No! What I’m telling you, John! I don’t know where he is. I told Vincenzo’s people already. I don’t know nothing. Mick bailed on me too. Fucking asshole owes me money. I’ll tell you what I know, but what I know is nothing.”
I sighed. “Okay, let’s have that beer. Then tell me the nothing that you know.”
He went to the kitchen and came back with three cold beers. He sat and took a swig.
“You gotta understand, until Nelson came along, Mick had the situation in the Bronx under control. Everything was working smoothly. Things had changed since we took down the Albanians, and there was some jockeying for power, but the families in New York had given Vincenzo the go-ahead to move in. It was an old, well-established family. They knew how to do things and keep the peace. You know, firm but fair. The important thing, as Mick saw it, was to keep the Chinese out, because those motherfuckers are crazy, and keep some control over the Mexicans, because those motherfuckers are just as fucking crazy as the fucking Chinese! You know what I’m saying? So Mick was all for having the New Jersey Mob move in. It made sense.” He paused and stared at Dehan. “You Mexican?”
“Half,” she said tonelessly.
He grinned. “Then I’m half-sorry. No, seriously, I was talking about the gangs, the Angeles de Satanas, not all Mexicans.”
She said, “Shut up, Kirk. Just get on with your goddamn story.”
“Okay. So anyhow, suddenly Nelson comes out of nowhere with his chulos and they start muscling in on Vincenzo’s territory. Next thing he’s running hookers and dope. And because he’s a local kid, he has the support of the barrios. So Pro comes over from Jersey and has a talk to him, warns him. ’Cause you know, Vincenzo and Pro, they are statesmen. They got experience and they are wise. So they don’t just blow him away and start a war. They’re fair. The guy has put in work—he’s built up his business, so all he’s got to do is pay a tax.”
Dehan was looking at me. Her cheeks were colored, and her eyes were bright. She pointed at Kirk and said, “This motherfucker was a cop?”
I gave my head a very small shake. “You want to wait outside?”
“No.”
She caught my unspoken answer, then shut up and sighed. I turned back to Kirk. “Yeah, Vincenzo is a real Thomas Jefferson. So what happened?”
“Nelson was out of his fucking mind. I think he was a goddamn psychopath or a sociopath, or both. Plus he was doing blow like there was no tomorrow, and that was making him more paranoid and crazy. He thought he was God or something. So he tells Pro to go fuck himself. And then he tells Mick the same thing. Mick comes around for his…” He hesitated over the word, then said, “dues… you know? His dues, and Nelson tells him to go fuck himself. He don’t need Mick no more and he ain’t paying him.”
“How’d he figure that?”
“He said he’d been talking to the Sureños. They also call themselves the Ángeles de Satanás, like the Hells Angels, only Mexican.”
“Yeah, we know.”
“Sure you do. The whole Latino population of the Bronx is either in the gang or has family in the gang. So if they got behind Nelson, he was untouchable, know what I’m saying? So he says to Mick that he’s talking to the Ángeles, and now Mick and Vincenzo got a problem.”
Dehan asked, “So he stopped paying Mick.”
“Yeah.”
“So, he made enemies of just about everybody he could make enemies of.”
Kirk looked at her and nodded. “You could say that.”
“I don’t understand something, Kirk,” I said. “Mick had every reason to want Nelson dead. But when Vincenzo asks him to set Nelson up, instead of doing that, he sets Vincenzo up. Twice. Why would he do that?”
Kirk shrugged. “You’re asking me, pal. He used me. I ran errands for him. But he never confided in me. He played his cards close to his chest. Maybe he was looking to start a war between rival gangs…”
“Or he wanted to make the hit himself so he could take Nelson’s stash,” said Dehan.
Kirk nodded. “That’s very possible.”
I asked, “Where were you the Night Nelson got killed?”
“I was off duty. I was sick. And before you ask, I have no idea where Mick was that night. We didn’t socialize.”
I drained my beer and stood. I thought for a moment. “What about the Chinese? Did Mick have any contact with the Triads?”
To my surprise, Kirk nodded. “Yeah, sure. They were looking
to move in to the Bronx. They wanted Mick to smooth the way. He told them no, it wasn’t just the Mob they’d be dealing with—Nelson was getting pretty powerful, and so were the Mexicans.”
“There was talk that a Triad hit squad was seen that night. You know anything about that?”
“Like I said, it could be that Mick was trying to start a gang war on Mexican turf.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Dehan said.
“So while everyone is pinning Nelson’s death on everybody else,” I said, “Mick quietly retires with Nelson’s money.”
Kirk nodded. “It’s possible.”
“Okay. Make yourself available, Kirk. This is an official investigation. It is in your interest to collaborate. You understand what I’m saying to you?”
He went pale and nodded, then said, “There is one other thing. I can’t prove this, but I got the impression Nelson wasn’t only pissing off the Mob and the Chinks. I think he pissed off the Sureños too.”
“How so?” It was Dehan.
“He was talking out of turn, man. He was making claims about how they was gonna back him up, like his personal army. But I don’t think that was true. And I think they was getting pissed at him.”
Dehan snorted. “What a dick.” She drained her beer, and we left.
Five
We approached the Jaguar as a small UPS Transit pulled up. While we’d been inside, heavy clouds had moved in from the Atlantic. Dehan was saying, “All roads lead to Mick Harragan.”
I nodded and watched the driver climb out of the van with a parcel. He had a barcode reader around his neck, and he made his way across the lawn to Kirk’s house. I noticed absently that he looked Chinese. He skipped up the porch steps and rang the bell. “What’s this?” I said.
Dehan watched. It was hard to see in the failing light under the shadow of the porch. The door opened and they seemed to talk for a moment. I thought I heard a cough or Kirk clear his throat. Then the UPS guy came down the steps without the packet, looking at his barcode scanner.