by Dan Mahoney
The applications were for the bar phone and the pay phone at the Pioneer, O’Reilly’s home phone, a cell phone listed to Jack O’Reilly, and Winthrop’s cell phone. The sixth application was a surprise to McKenna and told him that Brunette was taking no chances. It was for the home phone of Dennis Hunt.
Everything seemed to be going well, with the police operation entirely legal after they left the judge’s Queens home at 2:00 A.M., but McKenna was still worried. Mulrooney would be captured in thirty-one hours if everything went according to the obvious plan, and possibly sooner if he used his phone again or contacted any of the tapped phones, but there was still the potential for disaster. Mulrooney was planning something big with all the tools of his trade, and was deep underground since he knew the IRA was looking for him. He had to be desperate, McKenna reasoned, especially after O’Bannion’s death, and desperate men do desperate things. On the positive side, Mulrooney couldn’t know yet that the NYPD was aware of his true identity and history, knew he was in New York, and was searching hard for him using all means available.
Pao took the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan and McKenna had him stop on East 41st Street between Madison and Fifth Avenue. The deserted street was lined with high-rise office buildings and ended at the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.
McKenna wanted to search for some clue as to why Mulrooney had been on that particular block, but Pao’s radio crackled as soon as McKenna got out of the car. “What are you looking for, Brian?” came over the air.
McKenna recognized the voice of Joe Mendez, another one of the detectives assigned to the Major Case Squad, and realized that Mendez had been assigned to the surveillance of East 41st Street. McKenna looked up and down the block, searching for Mendez, but saw no sign of him on the deserted street.
But Mendez was still watching him. “If you need something, come on over to the library,” he transmitted.
McKenna did want to talk to Mendez, so he walked toward the library on Fifth Avenue. When he got to the corner, he saw him. The usually fashionable Joe Mendez was dressed in rags and sitting on the ground under the front portico of the massive classical building. Beside him were a pair of crutches and a stuffed black garbage bag. With a show of difficulty, Mendez got up on his crutches as McKenna approached him. “Can you spare some change, sir?” Mendez asked with his grimy hand out.
McKenna thought the disguise deserved some reward, so he reached into his pocket for some change. He had a lot of it, Icelandic, British, and Irish coins, as well as American. He dropped them all in Mendez’s hand.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Mendez said, putting the change in his overcoat pocket. “God bless you and may all your time be overtime.”
“Like yours?”
“Yes, and on behalf of the rest of the squad, I’d like to thank you for this case and the easy money. We’re all on twelve-hour tours with no days off.”
That was wonderful, McKenna knew. Time and a half was always wonderful and the well-paid first and second grade detectives of the Major Case Squad would be raking it in as long as Mulrooney was free in New York. Besides the one on East 41st Street, all the surveillances involved in keeping track of O’Reilly and the Mullen boys would be punching a sizable hole in the budget, he realized, but that was only a small part of the expense. The overtime earned by the detectives assigned around the clock to the many teams spread throughout the city would bust the budget of most of the smaller police departments in the country, and that was the easiest money of all. Those lucky detectives were doing nothing but waiting to zero in on Mulrooney should he use his cell phone again. Thanks to Michael Mulrooney, the morale of the Major Case Squad was soaring. “Who’s here with you?” he asked Mendez.
“The other happy bum is Joe Sophia. He’s sitting in a wheelchair and panhandling from a doorway on the other side of Madison Avenue. Tells me he was doing pretty good until the traffic died down.”
“Any idea what Mulrooney was doing here?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Anybody check the building directories on 41st Street?”
“I was hoping somebody would ask,” Mendez said. Balancing himself on his crutches, he reached down into the garbage bag, removed a notebook, and handed it to McKenna. “As far as I could tell, there’s no Irish or British organizations on the block.”
McKenna thumbed through the notebook and saw that Mendez had done a lot of writing. It was almost full and contained a list of every organization and firm with offices on the block. He put the notebook in his pocket and asked, “What are you gonna do if Mulrooney shows up?”
“Take proper police action.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m by myself, I’m sure he’s armed, and we know he’s dangerous. Just between us, I’m gonna shoot the big donkey and come up with a story later.”
What would I do in the same circumstances? McKenna wondered, but only for a moment. “Good thinking, Joe.”
Like Pao had said, the press certainly wanted to talk to McKenna. It was common knowledge among the reporters in town that he lived at the Gramercy Park Hotel, so McKenna had Pao drive past the place. There were news vans from all the local stations parked outside, reporters McKenna knew at the front door, and he could see through the front window that the hotel bar was doing a great business as other reporters whiled away their time in the traditional manner. It was a media circus gearing up, but the players were in the wrong tent. McKenna’s rent for the month was paid, but if Angelita had followed his instructions, nobody in the hotel should know that he no longer lived there.
“Dopes,” was Pao’s take on the matter. “You ready to go home yet?”
Am I ready to face Angelita and spend the night explaining and apologizing? “Not entirely ready, but I’ve got no choice. Let’s go.”
It was only a half-mile drive to McKenna’s new home in Greenwich Village. It was the neighborhood he had grown up in, and he liked everything about it. As Pao pulled in front of his building, McKenna noted with some satisfaction that his new location had everything that made living in Manhattan so convenient. There was a twenty-four-hour grocery store on one corner, a video rental store on the other, a Chinese laundry and dry cleaner across the street, a movie theater two blocks away, and hundreds of fine restaurants within walking distance. He was also pleased with his building, a four-story scrubbed and renovated old brownstone with new windows, a blue slate stoop, and ornate brass lamps on each side of the polished walnut front door. It was a standout beauty on a block of stately, expensive, well-maintained brownstones.
McKenna was getting his luggage from the trunk when his cell phone rang. “Do you know that Mulrooney’s in New York?” Martin McGuinn asked, dispensing with all pleasantries.
McKenna knocked on the trunk and waved to Sheeran and Pao. Both men got out of the car and joined him at the trunk. “Yeah, we know he’s here, but we don’t know where he’s staying,” McKenna said to McGuinn.
“Neither do I, but do you know who he’s got with him?”
“No.”
“According to what I hear, two very dangerous hard men we’ve been looking for are with him in your city.”
“Are they bombers?” McKenna asked.
“No, gunmen with loads of experience. We’ve been searching for them for months, but Kiernan Crowley has been hiding out in New York. Billy Ambery was with Mulrooney in Iceland. He was the mate on the boat there.”
“Where are you getting this information from?”
“There used to be a man in Donegal by the name of Joe Learey who had two nice boats he put at our disposal for a price whenever we needed them. It came to our attention that one of his boats was missing, so we had a chat with him. Learey claimed that it had sunk, but we thought it curious that he hadn’t made an insurance claim for it.”
“Would that boat have been the fifty-six-foot sport fisherman?” McKenna asked.
“Yes, so my men talked very hard to Learey and he eventually de
cided to tell them the truth. He had been hired by O’Bannion and took Ambery with him to Iceland. They brought Mulrooney back with them and Learey’s regular first mate met them off the Donegal coast in his other boat. They opened the sea cocks on his sport fisherman and sunk it, then took his other boat back to port. Mulrooney paid him and then Learey drove them to Shannon Airport.”
“How much was he paid?”
“Three-hundred-thousand American dollars. His boat was worth about two hundred thousand, so he thought he’d made himself a nice tax-free profit for a week’s work.”
“How did Learey know Mulrooney and Ambery were taking a flight to New York?”
“Actually, they took a flight to Montreal. Ambery told him that New York was were they were headed, eventually.”
“Why would Ambery tell him that?”
“He probably doesn’t remember that he did. Learey and Ambery didn’t have a lot to do while they were waiting on their boat in Iceland, so Ambery did a lot of drinking and bragging. Learey had worked for us many times, so both he and Ambery knew many of the same people.”
“Including Kiernan Crowley?”
“Yes, including Kiernan Crowley. Ambery told him they were meeting Crowley in New York and that Mulrooney was planning something big there.”
“Does he know what names they’re using here?”
“No, and Ambery didn’t know exactly what Mulrooney was planning.”
“Did Learey know that he wasn’t working for the IRA when he took his boat to Iceland?” McKenna asked.
“Both he and his mate claimed to the end that they didn’t, but my men didn’t believe them.”
“I guess there’s no way that Mulrooney could find out that Learey’s talked to your people, is there?”
“No. Both he and his mate have had a terrible run of luck, losing two boats and their lives in a single month.”
“So there’s been another accident?”
“I’m sorry about it, but it was necessary. It won’t be discovered for a while and I doubt if their bodies will ever be recovered. I understand that Learey’s other boat went down off the Donegal coast about an hour ago.”
The cavalier manner in which McGuinn described the murder of two men angered McKenna, until he realized that McGuinn had ordered the murders on his behalf to prevent word from getting to Mulrooney that the NYPD knew he was in town. It was a terrible business getting worse. “What about Meaghan Maher?”
“Learey actually cried when he told my men about her. Mulrooney brought a large suitcase on board early on the night of February twenty-first. He told them not to open it, but they had the heat cranked up on the boat and after a couple of days the suitcase started to smell. Learey opened it and was shocked when he saw what Mulrooney had done to Meaghan Maher. Neither Learey nor Ambery wanted to get caught in Iceland with her body on board, so they sneaked out of the harbor one night and dumped her body at sea.”
“Why didn’t they leave her in the suitcase when they dumped the body?”
“Because Ambery wanted it. He tried cleaning it, but he couldn’t get rid of the smell. They realized how angry Mulrooney would be when he found out they had disobeyed his orders and opened the suitcase, so they cut it up and threw it overboard at the dock in Reykjavík harbor.”
“What was Mulrooney’s reaction when he found out that they had dumped the body?”
“Quite angry, at first. But they told him that the suitcase was smelling and they were afraid that someone would notice. Told him that they dumped it at sea without opening it and that calmed him down a bit.”
“A bit?”
“He didn’t touch Learey, but he pounded Ambery. Just one punch to the body, but he hit him so hard that Learey was sure that Ambery’s got a few broken ribs. When Learey dropped them off at the airport a week later, Ambery was still walking stiff and in so much pain that he couldn’t even carry his own suitcases.”
“I guess Billy Ambery isn’t too crazy about Mulrooney,” McKenna surmised.
“According to Learey, Ambery hates him, but fears him like the devil. After they saw what Mulrooney had done to Meaghan, Ambery started drinking even more. Swore he would kill Mulrooney if he got the chance, but Learey thinks that’s drunken bullshit. Says that Ambery was certainly a tough lad before Mulrooney broke his ribs, but never a match for Mulrooney.”
“Can you give me any more information about Crowley and Ambery?” McKenna asked.
“Give me a fax number. I’ve got a few pictures and we’ve been making discreet inquiries for weeks. We know that both of them have relatives in New York and bogus British passports. I’ll send you everything we’ve got.”
McKenna gave McGuinn the Major Case Squad’s fax number and was about to hang up when another thought hit him. “Does the name Jack O’Reilly mean anything to you?”
“No. Why?”
“Because he’s mixed up with Mulrooney here.”
“I don’t know the man, but here’s an interesting piece of information for you. She’s dead now, but Mulrooney’s mother’s maiden name was O’Reilly. The O’Reillys were always a good republican Belfast family.”
So Uncle Jack is Mulrooney’s cousin, McKenna thought. He looks like a legitimate guy, but he’s deep in this and getting deeper. “Thanks for the information, Martin.”
“Not so fast, Brian. What about our deal?”
“You’ve more than fulfilled your end. As soon as this is over, there’s sure to be quite a press conference and either myself or the police commissioner will announce that Mulrooney was definitely not working for the IRA when he did the Iceland bombing and killed Meaghan.”
“How about the killings he did before his other bombings?” McGuinn asked.
“We won’t go into detail with the press about those, but I’m sure the Brits will. Can’t help you much there.”
“That’s all right. Our people don’t believe much the Brits say anyway, so that’s the least of my worries. Thanks to you and Maggie, I’m spending most of my time hiding from our own press with their questions about it.”
McKenna couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for McGuinn. Instead, all through his dealings with McGuinn he had felt as if he was closing a deal with the devil. However, McGuinn had come through and the deal had to be honored. “If I can get away with it on this side of the Atlantic, I’ll lie your way out of it for you,” he said, then pushed his End button.
“I guess it’s not time to go home yet,” Pao said.
“No, let’s get downtown and take a look at some information that took two more murders to get.” McKenna put his suitcases back in the trunk and slammed it shut.
Twenty-Seven
O’Reilly had been followed home by the time McKenna, Pao, and Sheeran arrived at the Major Case Squad office. Eddie Morgan was the detective monitoring Tavlin’s computer terminal and the base radio set, but nothing was coming over the air. McGuinn’s faxes had already arrived and Morgan handed Sheeran the packet of papers, but the inspector thought McKenna should be the first to read them. He handed them to McKenna and said, “Let’s go into my office.”
McKenna and Pao followed Sheeran in and McKenna sat at Sheeran’s desk reading, with the inspector and Pao looking over his shoulder. It was soon apparent to McKenna that even more wiretaps and surveillances would have to be put in place.
Crowley was thirty-four years old and had a cousin in Woodlawn. Ambery was forty-one and had a married sister living in Levittown in Nassau County, about thirty miles east of Manhattan. McGuinn had sent the addresses for both relatives. Crowley and Ambery had both done time in the Maze Prison and somehow McGuinn had obtained their prison photos.
McKenna spent a while staring at the faxed standing prison photos of the two violent men. Both were about five foot ten, and each looked tough and in shape as they glared back at the camera. Like Mulrooney, they wouldn’t be taken without a fight. McGuinn had also provided photocopies of the front page of the forged British passports Ambery and Crowley had been using as
well as a list of aliases the two had used in the past. There were many of them, and though it would have been nice to track the men through credit cards, they apparently had none.
McKenna gave all the fax sheets to Sheeran and he handed the package to Pao.
“How many copies you want made?” Pao asked.
“I think everyone on this case should have it, so we’re gonna need at least a hundred.”
Is it possible we’ve got a hundred men working this case? McKenna wondered. “Where did you get all this manpower from?” he asked Sheeran.
“Thirty-two from our squad, another twenty from the borough Homicide Squads, and the rest from the Joint Terrorist Task Force.”
The Joint Terrorist Task Force was staffed by city detectives and federal agents from the FBI and ATF. Their commander reported to Gene Shields, so McKenna was glad to hear of their involvement. He knew that federal help would be necessary to get Mulrooney extradited quickly and spirited to Iceland after his arrest, which brought another thought to mind. “Inspector, do you mind if I use your phone?”
“International call?”
“Two. Iceland and London. I’ve made some promises, so we’re gonna be getting some company for the showdown.”
McKenna reached Thor at home and told him about the plan to capture Mulrooney on St. Patrick’s Day. Thor would be arriving at JFK at 9:00 P.M. on Monday and he would have with him an extradition request from his government.
Rollins was another story. It was 8:00 A.M. in London when McKenna called, but Rollins was already at his desk on Sunday in New Scotland Yard. However, Rollins wouldn’t be able to make it to New York by St. Patrick’s Day. Instead, he would be spending the rest of the week testifying before closed parliamentary committees about the role of British Intelligence and Special Branch in the O’Bannion-Ferguson affair. He presumed that his government would soon be putting as much distance as possible between their two agencies and anything connected to Mulrooney, O’Bannion, or Ferguson. Rollins thought that the British government would now be quite content to have Mulrooney rotting away and incommunicado in an Iceland prison.