Hoax

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  The archbishop had repaid the service and loyalty by instructing Kane to protect Flanagan and Co. from Internal Affairs whenever some reprobate complained about his treatment. Or the occasional problem when a victim died, such as when his new partner, Bob Leary, choked that drunk to death; the smelly bastard had taken a swing at Bobby, who lost it and had to be dragged off the corpse.

  Granted, there were times when Flanagan wondered how the church chose some of its targets. That business with knocking the archbishop’s old secretary senseless in a fake mugging had troubled him. The man was a priest, but Kane had assured him that the secretary was one of those perverts who sometimes snuck into a religious order so that they could molest little boys. Apparently the old perv had wormed his way close to Fey, which would have caused a huge scandal if it ever came out, Kane told him. So he’d hit him upside the head with a blackjack and called it a good deed well done. It was shortly after that he was introduced to Father O’Callahan.

  He understood that some of his orders might not be specifically at Fey’s request, such as harassing reporters who seemed to be working on uncomplimentary stories about Kane, or raiding record company offices looking for small amounts of cocaine. But he had no problem showing loyalty where he’d received it in kind.

  Still, he wondered sometimes why they were asked to put a strong arm on some business that didn’t seem to be hurting anyone. Or for that matter, why they’d be instructed to shoot one drug dealer but not another, or put this pimp in the hospital but not that one. When he asked O’Callahan, “Why not take them all down?” the priest replied that it would look too suspicious.

  The inconsistencies and gray areas nagged at him when he lay awake at night staring at the dark ceiling with Lena snoring next to him. But whenever he raised a question, O’Callahan reminded him that “the Lord works in mysterious ways” and that even things he didn’t understand were all part of “His Eminence’s grand plan to put the fear of a Christian God back into this city’s populace.”

  Of course, he’d never actually received any direct orders from the archbishop; however, he’d been around the politics of the department long enough to understand the concept of plausible deniability. Kane and O’Callahan had explained that the archbishop had to keep a buffer between him and these good deeds “for the sake of the church if something was to go wrong.”

  That wasn’t to say he hadn’t protected himself just in case someone got caught and left Mike Flanagan’s neck in the noose to hang. Mrs. Flanagan, God rest her soul, did not raise a fool for a son. So he’d tape-recorded several of his meetings, both with Kane and O’Callahan, but even that he considered just an insurance policy against an unlikely catastrophe.

  Flanagan realized that O’Callahan was just a messenger boy and that Kane was probably the tactical commander carrying out Fey’s plan. That had been fine with him until O’Callahan approached him with the plan to kill ML Rex. The mission had been presented to him by the priest as striking a blow for decency and to send a message to other rappers who denigrated women and promoted the shooting of police officers.

  However, O’Callahan added that the killing had to be done in such a way as to frame Alejandro Garcia. The little greaser apparently had something the archbishop wanted—some sort of files the punk was using to blackmail the church. “As well as the police department,” the priest warned.

  Simply killing Garcia, which was Flanagan’s first choice, wasn’t possible. The priest said that the archbishop did not know where the files were hidden or who else might know about them. They needed something to hang over his head—like a murder charge with the possibility of a death sentence.

  It was all getting too complicated. Flanagan decided he needed more assurance that he was truly working for the church. “How do I know that the archbishop wants this to happen? I don’t mean to doubt you, or Mr. Kane—I owe him and I never forget a debt—but this is steppin’ in some pretty deep horse poop. I would just like some sort of sign from his eminence.”

  O’ Callahan had told him he would see what he could do. Several days later, he was asked to report to the archdiocese offices, where he was escorted by the priest into a small receiving room where Kane was already waiting. A few minutes later, Fey came into the room with O’Callahan and offered his hand and ring for Flanagan to kiss. “I’m sorry to have so little time with you, Detective Flanagan. I knew your father and he was a great friend of the church, as you well know. But I wanted to thank you personally for the work you have done on behalf of the Holy Church and this community.”

  Tears had sprung to Flanagan’s eyes at the mention of his father. He could hardly speak after the archbishop’s kind words other than to blurt out, “It has been my honor and duty to serve you.”

  Fey looked confused, but O’Callahan had moved in quickly and firmly grabbed the archbishop by the elbow as though to support him. “Your service is much appreciated, detective,” he said. “I want to apologize personally that his eminence has so little time today, but we really must hurry.” With that the two churchmen left the room.

  “Sorry he couldn’t say more,” Kane apologized, too. “You know how it is…he’s got to protect the church in case anything ever goes wrong. But he wanted to personally let you know that he appreciates your sacrifices. Satisfied?”

  Flanagan nodded. At that moment, if given the word he would have thrown himself off the tallest spire of St. Patrick’s. He even felt bad about carrying the transceiver that looked like a pen. When he got in the car, he told Leary to give him the tape of the conversation. “It’s something that I’m always going to cherish.”

  Leary furrowed his brow in response. “He didn’t say much.”

  “He didn’t have to,” Flanagan replied, irritated that the young man was such a wet blanket on one of the best days of his life. “Some things you just got to accept on faith, Bobby. Once you get that through that thick Irish skull of yours, you’ll be a happier man.”

  “I guess,” Leary said with a shrug.

  After that, Flanagan had thrown himself into the plot to kill ML Rex and frame Garcia with a vengeance. It was a stroke of luck that he recalled Garcia’s shooting conviction. He figured the .45 would have his fingerprints all over the gun. A few thousand dollars and the gun was in his possession; a few thousand more after the killing and a friend in the latent prints unit switched the tags.

  Vincent Paglia was a lowlife who owed some of Kane’s friends a lot of money. Flanagan didn’t like threatening the guy’s wife and kid to get him to cooperate, but sometimes a little fear would keep idiots from making stupid mistakes. The guy was just bright enough to follow instructions—one of which had been to burn the business card with Flanagan’s cell phone number and the mug shot taken of Garcia after his juvenile arrest.

  They’d picked up the limo when it turned into East Harlem and followed it to the desolate area where they knew it was unlikely there’d be any witnesses. At least nobody who would willingly come forward to rat somebody out. Still, they’d pulled on black ski masks, and when Paglia jumped out and started to run, they walked up to the limo and did what needed to be done.

  A few minutes later, as they were driving away, Leary pulled off his mask and laughed. “Good hunting for one night,” he said. “Two nigger gangbangers and a couple of spic whores.”

  “Can it, Bobby,” he’d replied. “Doing the Lord’s work ain’t nothin’ to laugh about.”

  Chagrined, Leary turned red and apologized, “Sorry, Mikey. I didn’ mean nothin’ by it.” But Flanagan, who’d placed a call on his cell phone, waved off the apology and gave him a reassuring smile. He spoke a few words into the telephone, then hung up.

  Despite chastising his partner, Flanagan had actually enjoyed putting a bullet in ML Rex’s mouth. It was a fitting end to all that filthy language and perversion of American values.

  They’d driven to McDonald’s, picked up a bite to eat, and headed to Central Park to wait until Paglia reported the shooting and a patrol car disco
vered the crime scene. After that, everything just fell into place like O’Callahan said it would. They’d waited a few days, “found” Paglia, who “confessed” and became the state’s star witness.

  After that, according to instructions, they’d taken their time and let it all play out naturally. Leary had called in the tip to the NYPD Crimestoppers hotline that Garcia had made death threats to ML Rex, which had then been passed to Flanagan. They then picked up Garcia and put him in a lineup where the star witness Paglia picked him out, thanks to the mug shot.

  It was all working so perfectly. But then Clay Fulton called and said the district attorney himself wanted to talk to Paglia. “He may be more involved than he told you.” Flanagan immediately called O’Callahan.

  Flanagan was surprised when the priest called back a few minutes later and said that the archbishop had decided that Paglia had to be removed. “Permanently. He’s a danger to the church and all of us, especially you,” he said.

  “He won’t say anything. He’d be up for homicide, too,” Flanagan pointed out.

  “You think he won’t see that rolling over is his only chance if they’re onto something,” O’Callahan replied. “You think you can trust an Italian to keep his mouth shut to protect a couple of Irish cops, not to mention an Irish archbishop?”

  Flanagan thought about it for a moment. The priest had a point. The Irish had to stick together. But he knew that this order had to be coming from Kane, and he demanded to meet with the lawyer.

  Instead of driving to the fish market to pick up Paglia at Fulton’s request, Flanagan had been invited to Kane’s penthouse, where the priest escorted him down a hallway to the library. Kane entered from another door, and O’Callahan left them alone. “What can I do for you, detective?” the lawyer said, sitting down at a big mahogany desk and indicating that he take a seat in a low-backed leather chair.

  “I just wanted to be sure that getting rid of Paglia wasn’t just O’Callahan’s idea.”

  “Has he ever steered you wrong in the past?” Kane said, gazing at his fingernails.

  “Well, no…”

  “You know that he has the archbishop’s complete confidence, don’t you? And, by the way, Mike…,” Kane said, sitting forward, “he has my complete confidence as well, and that should count for something after all this time.”

  “It does…it does, it’s just that we had a plan and now…”

  Kane held up his hand to silence him. “Plans change, Mike. You have to be flexible. It’s the inflexible stick that snaps in two when there’s pressure. Now are you going to snap on me, Mike?”

  Flanagan wasn’t sure if that was a threat, but it sounded like one. He suddenly felt uneasy. “No. Nobody’s snapping, Mr. Kane. I just wanted to make sure that Paglia’s no longer important to the plan.”

  “Well, are you sure now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, then I believe that this meeting is adjourned. I assume you can show yourself out?”

  When he reached his car, Flanagan got in and sat for a moment. He took the pen transceiver out of his coat pocket. “You get all of that Bobby?”

  Leary held up the tape. “Clear as a bell. Is there something wrong between you and Kane?”

  Flanagan thought about that, then shook his head. “Nah, just an insurance policy. After all, Kane is Catholic, but he ain’t Irish Catholic.”

  He’d taken the tape home and put it in the kitchen floor safe along with the others, covering the cut in the linoleum with a rug. Then he’d called Paglia and told him to stay away from his home and work.

  Tossing Vinnie off the footbridge had not troubled him. But he did feel sorry for the guy’s wife and little girl. They were Catholics, even if they were Italians. He resolved that he’d do what he could to get them the fifty grand—minus ten for Kane’s friends—when this was all over.

  Then things went from bad to worse when the article in the Village Voice appeared. An emergency meeting at Kane’s penthouse had been called. He noticed that O’Callahan seemed to be moving rather stiffly, as if he’d pulled a muscle in his back. But most surprising of all was the expression he saw in Kane’s face—he could have sworn it was fear.

  However, the lawyer pulled himself together and explained that a spy in Karp’s office had called to say that a box containing some of the police No Prosecution files had been delivered the day before. “And several more boxes containing similar files showed up today,” he said. “So far the files involving spurious allegations against the church are still missing…but they must not fall into Karp’s hands. In fact…,” the lawyer said directly to Flanagan, “I’m afraid that Karp has to die.”

  The detective wasn’t sure he heard right. “You want me to kill the district attorney of New York?” he asked incredulously. “Do you know what sort of storm that will cause?”

  Kane jerked up out of his chair, his blue eyes bugging out of his face, as he pointed a finger at the detective. “Do you know what sort of storm it will cause if he continues his investigation into the files he has, much less those he doesn’t? Don’t you understand? The man is onto us…and if one of us goes down, we all go down.”

  Seeing the hesitation on Flanagan’s face, Kane tried a new tact. “The man’s a Jew. You do understand that the Jews want to destroy the Christian church, especially the one true church?”

  “What’s in those files?” Flanagan asked.

  “A Jew plot,” Kane shouted. “For years they’ve been planting perverts into the priesthood, men who engage in sexual assaults on their congregations knowing that they will be caught. Don’t you see, they plan to destroy the church by destroying the faith upon which it’s built.”

  “Is that what happened in Boston?” Flanagan asked.

  “Yes, yes exactly,” Kane said nodding emphatically. “But we were onto them here. We found ways of getting rid of these horrible men and removing all traces of their sins before they could bring their evil plot to fruition.”

  Flanagan’s mind was reeling. He heard his father’s voice—“You can’t trust the government, it’s all run by Jews and their One World Order.” Could it be true? Karp was a Jew. “What prevents the next district attorney from doing the same thing?” he asked, knowing the dice had already been rolled.

  “By that time I will already have the files in my possession,” Kane said, calming down. “They are the only proof that can doom us, doom the church, and the NYPD. And next time, I will make sure that someone who is sympathetic to our cause is in that office. Someone who is not a Jew.”

  Flanagan was wondering how he was going to get to the district attorney, when the spy called again. Kane listened and hung up. “Karp and his pals are going to the Hip-Hop Nightclub tonight to speak to Garcia,” he said. “That will be your opportunity. A dangerous part of town, not safe to be walking around there.”

  Kane had already worked out the details. Kane had arranged for three LA thugs from ML Rex’s old gang to fly to New York City in case he’d needed to amp up the rap war scenario. “They’re waiting in a hotel in Brooklyn,” he said.

  So it had been arranged to deliver a stolen Land Cruiser as well as the Mac-10 and handguns to the gangsters, who were given their instructions on how to find the Hip-Hop Nightclub and the warehouse off Christopher. “The guy you’re supposed to whack is real tall, easily the tallest white guy on the sidewalk,” Flanagan told them over the telephone. “When he comes out of the club, make sure you got a good shot and then take it. Spray him down real good, then take off. We’ll meet you at the warehouse with the money and another car. Then you go home to Los Angeles and don’t come back.”

  • • •

  As he and Leary, and then the patrol car carrying two more of his boys, followed the SUV into the warehouse area, he called in on the radio and said the suspects were still headed south, giving a wrong location. He’d explain it later as having made a mistake in the heat of the chase.

  The gangsters finished shooting their weapons. “That it?”
Flanagan asked. “I want the crime-scene guys busy looking for a lot of bullet holes.”

  “Shee-it, yeah,” the leader said, pulling the bolt back and squeezing the trigger. There was a dry click. “Y’all was just in a hell of a shootout. Lucky y’all wasn’t gunned down in the line of duty.” He laughed as did his companions, who also demonstrated that their guns were empty.

  Flanagan laughed, too. “Yeah, well, like I said, you’re a lousy shot.” Then he stopped laughing. “Now, let me show you how it’s done.” He raised his .44 Magnum and blew the top half of the surprised gangster’s skull off.

  As instructed, Flanagan’s team let the others run for cover. He knew there was no way out, and they were soon hunted down where they fled behind some packing crates and shot, still clutching their useless handguns.

  Leary went out to the car and radioed that they had the gang trapped in a warehouse at Christopher and West. “They doubled back on us but we lost radio contact there for a minute.”

  Meanwhile, Flanagan looked around. It certainly looked like the gangsters had tried to shoot it out and lost. He could hear the sirens of their backup approaching. “Officer Calloway, are you ready?” he asked.

  The big young man stepped up. “Yes, sir.”

  “Where do you want it, left arm or right?”

  “I’m right-handed, so the left I guess.”

  Flanagan smiled. “I’ll have to put you in for a commendation for this,” he said, picking up one of the gangster’s 9mms, and inserted a single round in the chamber.

  “Thank you, sir, but that won’t be necessary. Glad to do it for the church and the force…not to mention a nice payday.”

  “Good lad,” Flanagan said, taking careful aim. “But really, you deserve it. Now hold still so I only nick you a little.”

  • • •

  An hour later, Kane took the call in his library. He cursed. “Find another way,” he said and hung up.