Bad blood

by Linda Fairstein

  Mike went even closer and rolled back the shoulder of the large body.

  “My God,” he said. “O’Malley. It’s Teddy O’Malley.”

  He grabbed Teddy’s wrist to feel for a pulse, but the two bullet holes to the back, as I could see from the blood that had seeped out of the wounds, had done their job. “The man is dead.”

  47

  Mike and I got down the steps as fast as we could travel. When I reached the station floor, I could hear Mercer’s voice coming from the direction of the crawl space.

  “We’re okay. Stay there. We’re coming out,” I said.

  “Brendan Quillian?” Mercer asked.

  “I think he killed O’Malley. Don’t know if he’s still here or not. Maybe he’s taken off already-got what he wanted or needed from O’Malley.”

  Mike reached my side. “Move it, Coop,” he said, pushing my back.

  For the first time, I heard noise in the great room behind Mike. I looked around, terrified that Quillian might be coming after us.

  Rats, three or four of them, were running in the shadows cast across the room by Mike’s flashlight. Their tiny claws scratched at the flooring as they raced along.

  “They smell the blood,” Mike said. “Get out of here.”

  I scrambled through the crawl space and was met by Mercer, who helped me to my feet and reached for Mike after me. The trapdoor dropped on its hinge and slammed shut.

  Before we could speak, I could hear the next train approaching. Mike stepped to the edge of the platform and aimed the flashlight at his badge, his gun reholstered on his hip. This time, he wanted the motorman to stop for us.

  The train seemed to brake as it approached the tight curve in the black tunnel, but the driver was probably unable to see Mike’s detective shield, so he speeded up again at the sight of the three of us in a place we were not supposed to be.

  “You know this tunnel?” Mercer asked Mike. “Any other way out?”

  “Yeah, there’s a few choices. Probably the easiest is how O’Malley walked in from the Brooklyn Bridge stop. There’s an abandoned strip of track you pick up right off the far north end of the platform. Takes you back to civilization.”

  Mercer speed-dialed the lieutenant on his cell. “Bringing out Mike and Alex. Couldn’t get the last train to stop. Motorman must think we look like a politically correct stickup team, trying to hijack him. You think you can do that for us, or do we have to slog our way out through some defunct tunnel Chapman thinks he can find?” Mercer said. “And Teddy O’Malley’s dead, inside the station.”

  Mercer listened to Peterson’s response. “Wait up,” he said to the lieutenant, “let me ask Mike.”

  “What’d he say?” Mike asked.

  “You want to hold tight here? He’ll have a team try to get on with one of the next motormen to pick us up. He’d prefer that to having you tiptoe around the third-rail hot spots. Wants to know if you think Quillian’s still around.”

  “I’m clueless. Tell him to bring in all the backup he’s got. Slowly and carefully. There’s all kinds of tunnels and passageways inside this place.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Can I talk to him?”

  Mercer passed the phone to me.

  “Alex, you okay? Battaglia’ll have my ass with you being in there,” Peterson said.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Would you call over to the Fifth?” I asked. The nearby Fifth Precinct station house was on Elizabeth Street, a two-minute ride from our location, with lights and sirens blaring. “Tell whoever’s on the desk to send a patrol car to a shop on Bayard called Uncle Charlie’s. They all know it.”

  “What for?”

  “As fast as they can go, tell Charlie I need baozhang. Hear me? I said baozhang. Tell him I need bamboo sticks, as big as he’s got. And matches-I want matches, too.” I had been reminded of the sticks when I saw the dried-out bamboo seats of the antique train car.

  “Alex, what kind of-”

  “Trust me on this, Loo. Do it fast.”

  The three of us were marooned on the narrow strip of platform until Peterson could get a train to stop and pick us up. The skylight that hung overhead was now sheathed in darkness as night settled over the city.

  I was sandwiched between the two men as we waited for an escort out.

  “Baozhang? I haven’t thought of the stuff since you convicted that Asian gang of the Chinese New Year rape. You planning a celebration?” Mercer said.

  “I’m celebrating big as soon as we get out of here. No need to wait for the Fourth of July.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a take-out dinner, whatever the hell you just ordered,” Mike said.

  “I like her thinking, Mike.” Mercer patted me on the back, stroking my shoulder for reassurance.

  Off to the south of us came some unexpected noise. Instinctively, Mike raised his arm and the light caught another phalanx of rats-big ones, with long, pink tails, scurrying up and over the edge of the platform, disappearing out of sight around the curve.

  Mike started to walk in that direction. “You wait with Coop,” he said to Mercer.

  “Stay tight, Mike.”

  He waved off Mercer’s admonition.

  “You’ve got the only light. What are you doing?”

  Mike stopped.

  We both knew that he was looking for Quillian, but Mercer didn’t want the killer to be found until some reinforcements arrived. Something had caused the rodents to dance out of their habitat within the old station. If this wasn’t their regular feeding time, then perhaps their flight was caused by an intruder.

  I looked back to the north, willing a train to arrive, but the evening schedule would bring them less frequently now.

  “So there’s a side tunnel off to the north,” Mercer said, barely loud enough for me to hear. “And what about that way? To the south.”

  As Mike pointed, we could see to our left the active tracks of the old loop, where the #6 train finished its turnaround. “Over to the right of the raised platform there’s another black hole, now abandoned-another sandhog excavation. It’s a cylinder-nine feet around-built as a pneumatic mail system almost a century ago.”

  “Does it open onto this?” Mercer asked.

  Mike nodded.

  My eyes were playing tricks with me now. The rats were running in our direction, turned back by whatever had disturbed them. The glare from their eyes, like beady little headlights coming toward us, drew my sights to the level of the ground. But along the distant curving wall, something taller-something the size of a human-was moving slowly in the opposite direction.

  I didn’t want to call the figure to Mike’s attention. It couldn’t be more than a minute before the next train was due into the loop. I didn’t want him going after this desperate man alone.

  I looked over my shoulder again but saw no sign of the #6. When I turned my head back, Mike had already spotted the figure under the farthest arch of the platform.

  “Quillian! Freeze!” Both Mike and Mercer drew their guns.

  “Alex,” Mercer said in his firmest voice, “get back up on there.”

  I retreated to the second step of the staircase, my heart pounding as I watched Mike start to trot lamely toward Quillian.

  The fugitive raised an arm. He had a gun, too, and I had no idea how much ammunition he had left, or whether he had discharged any bullets in the days since he’d left the courtroom-before putting two rounds in Teddy O’Malley’s back.

  “Give it up, Quillian,” Mike said. “There’s cops on both ends of the tunnel-and a very hot third rail in between.”

  Mike was too far from Quillian-and it was pitch-black around them-for either to take aim and shoot, but I ached at how exposed both Mike and Mercer were on the narrow platform. Once the train made its approach, they’d be silhouetted in its high beams and at a great disadvantage in the standoff if Quillian fired at them.

  “Come over here,” I hissed at both of them, but they didn’t move.

  Brendan Quillian must hav
e been inching farther away, his back against the wall. I couldn’t see the movement, but I heard Mike yell at him to stop.

  Then his shadow picked up speed as he seemed to reach a corner and round it. Mike barked again and ran away from Mercer and me, slowed by his weak ankle.

  He reached the end of the platform and paused before jumping down-practically three feet-to the bed of the train tracks. His bad leg crumpled beneath him from the impact of his weight. This time Mike screamed in pain as he toppled over and slid against the tracks.

  48

  Mercer took off in Mike’s direction in a flash and Quillian disappeared from sight. I dashed after Mercer and reached the platform’s edge just as he jumped down and leaned over beside Mike.

  “Go on back, Alex.”

  I sat and eased myself off the platform. “It’s safer being with you. At least you’ve both got guns.”

  “This isn’t any sprain, man. I’d be surprised if you haven’t torn a ligament or broken a bone,” Mercer said. “Can you stand? Let me help you up.”

  Mercer picked his head up, looking for Quillian to reappear, while he tried to help Mike up at the same time. His revolver was still in his right hand.

  But as Mike had landed, his good leg had shot out in front of him. It was bent to the side, and his foot was wedged under a tie of the old train tracks, where once tightly packed gravel had loosened and created crevices like the one that now trapped him.

  I was on my hands and knees, trying to ease Mike’s foot out of the loafer without further twisting it. Mercer attempted to lift him again with one arm, keeping the gun as steady as he could with his other.

  I saw the lights of the #6 gleaming on the tracks a second before I heard the blast from its horn. Peterson’s cops must have ordered the driver to barrel in at full speed to rescue the three of us from the isolated platform. Only now we were directly in the train’s path.

  Mike clutched my shoulder again, trying hopelessly to pull himself out from under the grip of the tie. His fingers dug deep into me before he gave up and let go.

  “Run, Coop!” Mike yelled at me. “Dammit, girl, run!”

  I tugged and tugged, but the heel of his shoe had become stuck between the steel and a rotting piece of wood covered by gravel. I wasn’t going anywhere without both men. The sweat was streaming out of my pores as I realized there was every likelihood we’d be crushed to death under the wheels of the subway cars that were racing to bring us to safety.

  “Take her, Mercer, will you, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Make the damn thing stop,” I shouted.

  Mercer’s ebony skin looked as dark as the rest of the station’s interior. He picked up the flashlight that had dropped to the ground next to Mike and stood in the middle of the tracks-all that separated Mike and me from the oncoming train-swinging the small beam around and around in a circle until the driver jerked his powerful machine to a sudden halt, inches from where we were huddled together.

  49

  “What the-?” a young detective asked as he stepped off the front subway car, his shield displayed in his pocket. He was carrying a large brown paper bag in his left hand, his gun in his right. “You guys lost your minds?”

  “Mercer Wallace. Special Victims. My partner’s got his foot stuck in the track.”

  “Chapman? That you? You oughta lay off the fancy legwork. You caught your perp?”

  “No. Not yet,” Mercer said.

  “There’s more ways out of here than Osama bin Laden has caves,” Mike called out. “Quillian may even know about most of them ’cause he came here as a kid with his old man. Can you get me an EMT? I think I’ve got a fracture.”

  I hoisted myself up onto the platform. “I’m Alex Cooper. Did the lieutenant send this bag for me?”

  “Yeah,” the detective said, handing it over, and taking a matchbook from his pocket. “And these. I’ll radio for a bus. We got to make it snappy. The trains will be stacking up behind us. They’ll be really restless to get going.”

  “Make it snappy?” Mike said. “The train gets any closer to me my foot’s gonna break in two. I’m not looking for a Phinneas Baylor saw-off-your-ankle-yourself solution.”

  The detective pulled a walkie-talkie from his pants pocket and stepped back into the subway car, directing the driver to reverse direction by thirty feet-perhaps relieving the pressure on the tracks-while he radioed for a team of paramedics.

  I turned to Mercer, who was kneeling beside Mike, using his penknife to jab at the wood. I leaned over, intent on removing the shoe from Mike’s foot to ease his obvious pain.

  “Nobody move.”

  I was startled by the sound of Brendan Quillian’s voice. He had inched along the darkened tunnel wall and was no more than twenty feet from us, his gun pointed directly at Mike’s chest. He was shielded by one of the arches that formed beneath the vaulted ceiling.

  “You, Miss Cooper. Take each of their guns and bring them over here to me.”

  “Don’t move, Coop,” Mike said, grabbing my wrist with his hand. “He doesn’t have enough cartridges to shoot all of us.”

  “Stay on your knees, Wallace. Tell her to bring me your guns.”

  Mike’s fingers were pressing into my wrist. I looked to Mercer for his reaction and got nothing but a stone-faced stare. His gun was back in his waistband, where he had placed it to work on Mike’s foot. He shifted his large body to try to block me from Quillian’s line of fire.

  The subway car with the young detective was just out of sight around the curve behind us. He couldn’t see what was happening.

  “We’d be dead already if he had three rounds left,” Mike said to Mercer and me, loud enough for Quillian to hear. “Think about it. He wouldn’t be talking to us.”

  Maybe that was true, or maybe he was being cautious until he got close enough to use his ammunition well.

  “I just want to get out of here,” Quillian said.

  “So did O’Malley,” Mike said. He was wincing in pain, ready to counter any excuses Quillian threw at him.

  “I don’t want to kill the three of you, but you know I’m capable of doing it.”

  “You killed your own child, you sick bastard. I know there’s nothing to stop you from shooting us if you had the lead,” Mike said. “If that fucking evil eye could see us at this range, maybe you would.”

  Mike was throwing it all at Brendan, while I couldn’t help but think of the irony of his killing the baby he’d conceived with Bex, then never being able to father kids with Amanda.

  “How about Teddy O’Malley, Brendan? Did he double-cross you?”

  Quillian didn’t answer.

  “He brought something to you in here that you needed, didn’t he? Food, for one thing? And I bet it was money. I bet he went to your sister’s house to get cash for your unexpected trip out of town.”

  I was trying to figure which direction Quillian wanted to go to make his escape. If he could find the outlet to the street that he was looking for, maybe he’d let us be.

  Now footsteps echoed on the platform behind us. The young detective sauntered forward, walkie-talkie in hand, no way of knowing that we’d been joined by Brendan Quillian.

  “The bus is coming, Chapman,” he called out.

  “You!” Quillian shouted from the darkened tracks. “Drop your gun and your radio right there. Get down on your knees. Bend over and put your hands on top of your head if you don’t want to see these three get blown up.”

  “Don’t listen to the bastard,” Mike called out, but the young cop knew he had walked into a trap he couldn’t make sense of, so his equipment clattered to the platform as he followed the killer’s orders.

  “Duke did all your dirty work, didn’t he?” Mike said. “Ever since you were a kid.”

  “Let me see you lay your guns down and I’ll be out of here before there’s any more blood, okay?”

  Brendan knew as well as we did that he had only minutes before the EMTs-and perhaps Peterson’s backup forces-would be in the
tube.

  Mike was shouting now, calling Brendan a baby killer, the noise reverberating in the tunnel. If Quillian dared to come out from behind the archway, both Mercer and Mike were capable of picking him off.

  “That’s a lie! I didn’t know Duke was going to kill Bex. That was his idea-that was his plan to let me start a new life. He took it on his own to do that when I left the country. I didn’t talk to him after that-not for years. I turned my back on the whole damn bunch of them ’cause of what he did.”

  “Till you needed Duke to kill your wife,” Mike said.

  I looked up in Quillian’s direction. He seemed to be slithering along the wall toward our position, moving to conceal himself behind another arch, one step closer to the long-forgotten mail tunnel Mike had described that branched off at the south end of the platform. Perhaps Brendan had been looking for that since he’d run off after shooting O’Malley.

  I knew Mercer would want to take a shot at him if he got within better range, but that he feared drawing fire because I was so close.

  I opened the paper bag that Peterson had gotten me from Chinatown and pulled out one of Uncle Charlie’s devices. Mercer looked back and tried to push my hand away from it.

  “Quillian’s only got one eye. Don’t stop me. He can’t see well enough to shoot unless he gets right on top of us,” I said. “And I know you’re not going to let that happen.”

  My hand was shaking as I placed several of the Chinese firecrackers on the ground beside us.

  “Keep talking to him, Mike,” Mercer said.

  “I bet you paid Duke to kill Amanda. When you were ready to bail out of your marriage, but wanted to keep the Keating money, that’s when you realized you needed your brother again. Mailed him money-in the envelope Trish showed us today.”

  Now I remembered what had fallen out of Trish’s apron.

  “What’d you do, send a cashier’s check to Duke? Left no record in your account but gave him plenty of cash to operate with. Kind of poetic justice that Bobby Hassett sliced off one of Duke’s fingers before he killed him, don’t you think? Must have tied him up to keep him still, torture him before he died, like someone ought to do to you. Those big fingers of Duke’s-the ones that strangled Bex to death? The ones he used to murder Amanda for you?”