Once In, Never Out

by Dan Mahoney

  This Thor is one cool character, McKenna thought. He must know from listening in that we’re in trouble with this case, but he’s too polite to show his concern with our mistakes. “I’ll see what I can do, but it won’t be easy,” McKenna told Brunette, then pressed End.

  “This salad is really very good,” Thor said, then paused. “Could you please give my regards to Commissioner Brunette and explain to him that I’m too tired to meet him tonight. I need some rest and some time alone, so tell him that I want to look my best when I meet him.”

  Meaning you want us to look our best when you meet him, McKenna thought. This guy is almost too tough, too polite, and too astute to be true, thank God. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”

  “Better get started on that salad or you won’t be finished with it when our steaks arrive.”

  When McKenna arrived he found Brunette at his desk looking dejected. A cassette player was on the desk in front of him. “How’s your pal Thor holding up?” he asked.

  “On the surface, unbelievably well, but I get the feeling I’m witnessing a controlled nuclear explosion when I look at him.”

  “Do you trust him to perform without going crazy?”

  “Absolutely. The time to worry about him is when this is all over. Until then, he’s still a big plus for us.”

  “Then that’s when we’ll worry about him, when all this is over,” Brunette said, considering that matter closed. “Now on to the most recent disaster. After listening to the tapes and thinking hard, I can’t come up with a single excuse. Mulrooney set us up and we should have known better.”

  “You sure? It wasn’t Frieda, but maybe something else spooked him,” McKenna offered, seeking to console his friend.

  Brunette was in no mood to be consoled. “Just listen to the tape.”

  McKenna took a seat and Brunette turned on the machine. The call from Mulrooney to his father had gone just as Rollins had described, but McKenna could hear the suspicion in Mulrooney’s voice when he had said, “Da, I think I smell a rat.”

  The call to Hunt was next and Hunt’s wife had answered. “Hello, Mrs. Hunt. This is Lieutenant Finan,” Mulrooney had said, without a brogue and using the name of the CO of the Bomb Squad. “Is Dennis there?”

  “Hold on, Lieutenant. I’ll get him for you.”

  There was a pause before Hunt had come on the line. “Yeah, Lou. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Dennis me boy. How are you?” Mulrooney had asked, but the Northern brogue was now there, strong.

  There was a pause before Hunt had answered and McKenna could imagine Hunt’s surprise at hearing Mulrooney’s voice. “Fine. Is that you, Mike?”

  “Sure it’s me. You busy at the moment?”

  There was another pause before Hunt had answered. “Kind of. Where are you?”

  “I just got into town, but I could be to your place in half an hour.”

  “You’re in New York?” Hunt had asked, and McKenna could hear the terror in his voice.

  “Sure I am. Just leaving the airport and looking to spend some time with an old friend,” Mulrooney had answered cheerfully.

  “Mike, I don’t know what you’re up to, but leave me out of it. Please, leave me out of it,” Hunt had pleaded.

  “Why? You don’t think they’re still watching you, do you?” Mulrooney had asked, sounding unconcerned.

  “No, of course not. You’re gone and forgotten after all these years,” Hunt had answered, but McKenna didn’t think he had sounded convincing at all.

  Mulrooney hadn’t seemed to notice. “All right, I’ll tell you what. If you’re worried, I’ll meet you someplace else in your neighborhood. Seems to me I remember a gas station at McLean and the Bronx River Parkway. That place still there?”

  “Yeah, it’s still there.”

  “Good. I should be there by nine-thirty.”

  There was another pause before Hunt spoke. “What is it you need from me?”

  “Same as always. I’ve got some money for Kathleen and the kids that I want you to pass on to them.”

  “Okay, but couldn’t we make it a little later? I just got up and it’ll take me a while to get myself together.”

  “And here am I, always saying what a good pal Dennis Hunt is, never thinking of himself and always ready to do a friend a favor. I don’t care what you look like when you get there, but I’m a little pressed for time. Can I count on you for this one last favor?”

  “Yeah, Mike. You can always count on me. Don’t worry, I’ll be there,” Hunt had said before hanging up.

  Brunette shut the cassette player off. “Dopey, huh?”

  “We know now it was a mistake, but not necessarily dopey,” McKenna said. “Remember, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”

  “Not good enough and I’m responsible. I never should have authorized that operation without hearing the tape. Unless I’m dopier than I think, I would’ve seen he was setting us up to see how hot he was and how much we knew.”

  “Who was our commander on the ground?” McKenna asked.

  “Kotowski, but the blame’s not his. Tonight was his first night working this case, so he doesn’t know Mulrooney like Sheeran does.”

  McKenna considered Capt. Abe Kotowski to be sharper than most bosses in the Bureau, sharp enough to deserve his place as XO of the Major Case Squad, but not as sharp as Sheeran. Unfortunately in this instance, Sheeran couldn’t be there all the time, so Kotowski always worked opposite hours from him when a big operation was running. “Can you tell me how it all went down?” McKenna asked.

  “Kotowski was in Midtown when the base notified him of the phone call. He hadn’t heard the tape either, but he knew that he had to get to the Bronx in a hurry. He radioed the teams and got them on the way, and then he called me for permission to proceed. I gave it and—”

  “Gave it, just like you should have,” McKenna said.

  Brunette smiled sardonically at McKenna. “Thanks. I gave it and things started going bad at that point. Now, imagine Mulrooney’s there right after he finishes talking to Hunt. He was probably hiding in the woods by the Bronx River Parkway, watching the gas station. Next thing he sees is a car pull up to the station and two guys wearing suits get out. He certainly knows what cops look like, so he’s not surprised when our two men go into the gas station to talk to the two guys working there. Then he sees them all go into the back, but what do you think he sees when they all come out again?”

  “Two miserable detectives dressed as gas station attendants and two gas station attendants proudly wearing their new suits.”

  “Exactly. Then another team pulls up and two more guys in suits take the two new guys in suits and both cars out of there in a hurry. That’s all Mulrooney had to see, if he even waited around that long. He calmly walked a couple of blocks to his car, humming to himself and secure in the knowledge that he’s smarter than the police commissioner of the city of New York.”

  “Then that’s too bad for him, ’cause he’s not. He’s been caught before by IAD, by people who certainly aren’t as smart as you. But I think you’re still not giving him enough credit.”

  “I’m not?” Brunette asked. “What I think I just told you is that I’m ready to build an altar for this guy to sacrifice chickens and goats to him, so what am I missing?”

  “I’ve seen how the IRA operates in Northern Ireland, so I’m sure he hung around in the woods for a while longer while the rest of our teams were setting up.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Playing with his scanner. There had to be lots of radio traffic between the teams while they were setting up, and he knew there would be. He hung around long enough to pick up the strongest radio signal, the one closest to his location. Now he’s got our exact frequency and he’s listening in.”

  “You’re right, Brian,” Brunette said, looking very unhappy. “Mulrooney is listening in and that’s sure gonna make things tougher for us.”

  “Only at first. We can’t contact the teams we’ve got out the
re right now and tell them to change frequencies because he’d know right away. We’ve got to wait until the tour change, which is when?”

  “Four A.M. You thinking of running a little disinformation campaign on him?”

  “Sure am. I hear that the FBI’s got some radios that operate on frequencies so high that they can’t be picked up by ordinary police scanners.”

  “They do,” Brunette said. “I’ll call Gene Shields at home and get all the radios he can spare.”

  “If you can. Then everybody working after four this morning should be using an FBI radio, but Mulrooney won’t know that. We need lots of voices up here after four to lull him into a false sense of security. We can’t let him know that we’ve changed frequencies on him.”

  “Okay, you and I will write the script. But he knows we know that he’s our Mike Mullen and he has to figure that we’re watching his wife and kids.”

  “Now he does, so tomorrow’s operation is gonna be a bust. But I’d still watch his kids real closely in case he tries to snatch them from under our noses.”

  “We’ll sure be doing that. Seems to me that the only connections to Mulrooney we’ve got left are Jack O’Reilly, Ambery’s sister, Brenda McDermott, and Winthrop’s phone.”

  “That’s it, but now he’s really suspicious and looking real close at everyone and everything,” McKenna said. “Let’s make sure we do nothing that tells him we’re still here, working hard, and in the game.”

  “If there still is a game. Since he knows we’re on to him, maybe he’ll clear out and go blow up something in somebody else’s city,” Brunette said, almost sounding hopeful.

  “Not this boy. You heard that farewell message to his father. He’s out with the IRA, and with O’Bannion gone, there might no longer be an Irish Army Continuity Council to hide him out. He’s got very few places in the world left to run to, so this is it for him—End Game, win or lose.”

  “Since he knows we know who he is, there’s no longer any reason to keep the press in the dark. We’ve still got time to make the morning editions, so by tomorrow morning I’m gonna have his face plastered on the front page of every paper in town. I’m also going to connect him to the killings in Brooklyn and give some details about the horrible things he did there. By the time I’m done tonight, Michael Mulrooney will be the most-wanted man in the history of this city.”

  “Are you gonna tell them about all the other bombings and killings we’ve connected him to?”

  “Might as well take all my medicine in one dose. I’m gonna have to tell them that one of our fired detectives, somebody we’ve been looking for and haven’t been able to find, has been doing bombings and horrible murders all over the world. Then you can give them the details and pay back your debt to McGuinn. Exonerate his IRA and distance them from Mulrooney any way you like.”

  “Good idea, but could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you leave me out of this midnight press conference of yours? You do all the explaining and I promise that I’ll read every word you say in the morning papers.”

  “You really want to leave me up there explaining and answering questions all by myself?”

  “Yeah, and I’d really owe you if you’d do that.”

  “Yes, you really will. They think they’ve already given you your lumps and now it’s my turn. I’m in for a real bruising.”

  Thirty-Two

  ST. PATRICK’S DAY—JACKSON HEIGHTS, QUEENS

  McKenna had been right. As far as Michael Mulrooney was concerned, he was in End Game. He felt refreshed after his fun with Frieda, but it hadn’t helped as much as he had hoped. She had given him pleasure, but no information of any use to him. His world was closing in on him and he didn’t care, except for one thing: He was determined to spend some time with his kids before it was over.

  Before the episode on McLean Avenue, he had been reasonably certain of his plans. He would do his work and then leave with his boys. He had three expertly made passports under a clear family name, three airline tickets good for any flight from Boston to Bangkok, and enough money to last them for years in Thailand.

  Now things were different, but he would still show them, just as he had shown Thor that Michael Mulrooney wasn’t a man to be trifled with. Another big part of them was Brian McKenna, but he was unsure of his feelings toward the famous detective. He had met McKenna once or twice and liked him. McKenna hadn’t been famous at the time, but he had enjoyed a good reputation in the department as a smart cop, a hard worker, and still a guy who could always be counted on to do the right thing. Those were all points in McKenna’s favor because Mulrooney still liked NYC cops and deep down, still considered himself to be one of them.

  However, Mulrooney’s affection for The Finest didn’t include IAD or the hierarchy, those self-righteous bosses who had looked down their noses at him and had shamed and hounded him out of the Job, the city, and the country. Them he hated, but that was another point in McKenna’s favor. He knew that McKenna had once been forced to join the hierarchy, but had found a way to leave the weasels to become a cop again.

  Of course, fate had made Mulrooney and McKenna enemies and placed them on opposite sides of the fence, but Mulrooney didn’t mind. Having a worthy enemy to combat and outthink was one of the true pleasures in life, but Mulrooney never underestimated his opponents; he had decided to learn exactly how much McKenna knew about him before he proceeded with his mission.

  That quest for knowledge had brought Mulrooney to his cousin’s neighborhood at one o’clock in the morning, prepared for battle if need be. Wearing a long-haired wig, he had driven his stolen car at the speed limit down 73rd Street. He saw nothing suspicious on O’Reilly’s block. There was nobody hanging around the deserted residential street and nobody sitting in any of the parked cars, but a brown commercial van parked at the curb a block away from the house aroused his interest. He had seen no one in it as he had passed, but knew that meant nothing. He had worked many surveillances himself during his time in Narcotics, frequently operating from a van that looked just like that one. Those vans came equipped with handy gadgets like periscopes, battery-operated heaters and coffee pots, and even Porta-Potties—all features designed to keep the detectives hiding in the back comfortable, alert, inconspicuous, and most important, inside.

  Mulrooney decided to investigate further. He removed his wig and drove around the block and down 34th Avenue. As he approached 73rd Street, he shut off his lights and engine and coasted into a parking spot provided by a fire hydrant near the corner. He could see the van parked a block and a half away, so he opened his windows and watched it through his binoculars. From experience, he knew the one drawback inherent in the design of those surveillance vans. All those fancy gadgets were powered by a separate set of batteries, but on long surveillances through chilly nights, the engine had to be started from time to time to keep the heater battery charged and the temperature inside just right. It was a chilly night, so Mulrooney watched, listened, and waited with one scanner tuned to the Major Case Squad frequency and the other tuned to a published frequency he already knew, the regular band used by the local 114th Precinct.

  Fifteen minutes later, one of Mulrooney’s questions was answered. He saw a small puff of smoke drift from the van’s exhaust pipe and even heard the engine crank loudly for a moment before it caught. After learning about his old partner Dennis Hunt, he was only mildly surprised to find that the NYPD also had his cousin under surveillance. In fact, his first thought was that those detectives should get their van tuned up every once in a while.

  Although he wasn’t quite sure of Hunt’s role and thought it possible that Hunt’s phone was tapped without his knowledge, he didn’t suspect treachery on O’Reilly’s part. Rather, he attributed the NYPD presence on 73rd Street to good police work by Brian McKenna.

  But how had McKenna found out about O’Reilly? Hunt didn’t know he even had a cousin in New York, so he couldn’t have tipped off McKenna. Only one other way
came to mind, but Mulrooney wanted to be sure. He decided that further investigation and action was called for. He screwed his silencer onto his pistol and inserted the weapon into the large breakaway shoulder holster under his long overcoat. It was time to take a stroll and create some excitement for the detectives in the van.

  Mulrooney had a general destination in mind and he arrived at it by walking a circuitous route. Five minutes later he was standing under a traffic light at 74th Street and 33rd Avenue, around the corner from the van. He waited patiently for a target to present itself, but the streets were deserted with no traffic in sight. Then an opportunity came from an unexpected quarter. A gray-haired white man wearing pajamas, a robe, and carrying a garbage bag left his house eight doors from the corner. He looked at Mulrooney for a second, then brought his trash to his garbage can at the curb.

  It was an easy shot, but it was also a heavily Irish neighborhood and Mulrooney had time. He saw no need to kill some kindred soul from the Old Sod on St. Patrick’s Day unless he had to, so he walked toward the man.

  The old man stopped with the lid to his garbage can in his hand and some alarm showing on his face as he watched Mulrooney approach. He relaxed a bit when Mulrooney smiled and said, “Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me where Jack O’Reilly lives?”

  “Sorry. Don’t know the man, but I can tell you he doesn’t live on this block. I’ve been living here forty-two years and I know everyone here.”

  “Thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you,” Mulrooney said, then turned and walked back toward the corner. No brogue, so he turned, drew his pistol, and quickly fired one muffled shot when he heard the old man replace the lid on the can. Mulrooney was quite pleased with himself as the man slumped to the ground. It was a clean head shot, so the old man died without making a sound.

  Mulrooney waited for a moment, looking up and down the street, and then another opportunity presented itself. He heard a car coming down 33rd Avenue and the light was red. The old Cadillac stopped at the light and Mulrooney could see that the sole occupant was the driver, a black woman in a nurse’s uniform. No need to ask her any questions, he thought. He raised his pistol and fired again. The bullet made some noise as it broke through the driver’s-side window, entered her left ear, and lodged in her brain. She fell across the front seat.