New York City Noir

by Tim McLoughlin

The hit man’s attention was on the woman. Schaeffer shoved him into a brick wall. Before he could recover and shoot, the detective sprinted fast down the alley.

  He heard the man shout, “Goddamn it!” and start after him. But Hell’s Kitchen was Bob Schaeffer’s hunting grounds, and in five minutes the detective had raced through dozens of alleys and side streets and lost the killer.

  Once again on the street, he paused and pulled his backup gun out of his ankle holster, slipped it into his pocket. He felt the crinkle of paper—what the guy had planted on him. It was a fake suicide note, Schaeffer confessing that he’d been on the take for years and he couldn’t handle the guilt anymore. He had to end it all.

  Well, he thought, that was partly right.

  One thing was fucking well about to end.

  Smoking, staying in the shadows of an alley, Schaeffer had to wait outside Mack’s for fifteen minutes before T.G. Reilly emerged. The big man, moving like a lumbering bear, was by himself. He looked around, not seeing the cop, and turned west.

  Schaeffer gave him half a block and then followed.

  He kept his distance, but when the street was deserted he pulled on gloves and fished into his pocket for the pistol he’d just gotten from his desk. He’d bought it on the street years ago—a cold gun, one with no registration number stamped on the frame. Gripping the weapon, he moved up fast behind the big Irishman.

  The mistake a lot of shooters make during a clip is they feel they’ve gotta talk to their vic. Schaeffer remembered some old Western where this kid tracks down the gunslinger who killed his father. The kid’s holding a gun on him and explaining why he’s about to die, you killed my father, yadda, yadda, yadda, and the gunslinger gets this bored look on his face, pulls out a hidden gun, and blows the kid away. He looks down at the body and says, “You gonna talk, talk. You gonna shoot, shoot.”

  Which is just what Robert Schaeffer did now.

  T.G. must’ve heard something. He started to turn. But before he even caught sight of the detective, Schaeffer parked two rounds in the back of the fat man’s head. He dropped like a bag of sand. The cop tossed the gun on the sidewalk—he’d never touched it with his bare hands—and, keeping his head down, walked right past T.G.’s body, hit Tenth Avenue, and turned north.

  You gonna shoot, shoot.

  Amen …

  * * *

  It took only one glance.

  Looking into Ricky Kelleher’s eyes, Schaeffer decided he wasn’t in on the attempted hit.

  The small goofy guy, with dirty hair and a cocky face, strode up to the spot where Schaeffer was leaning against a wall, hand inside his coat, near his new automatic. But the loser didn’t blink, didn’t show the least surprise that the cop was still alive. The detective had interviewed suspects for years and he now concluded that the asshole knew nothing about T.G.’s plan.

  Ricky nodded, “Hey.” Looking around, asked, “So where’s T.G.? He said he’d be here early.”

  Frowning, Schaeffer asked, “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Damn, you didn’t. Somebody clipped him.”

  “T.G.?”

  “Yep.”

  Ricky just stared and shook his head. “No fucking way. I didn’t hear shit about it.”

  “Just happened.”

  “Christ almighty,” the little man whispered. “Who did it?”

  “Nobody knows yet.”

  “Maybe that nigger.”

  “Who?”

  “Nigger from Buffalo. Or Albany. I don’t know.” Ricky then whispered, “Dead. I can’t believe it. Anybody else in the crew?”

  “Just him, I think.”

  Schaeffer studied the scrawny guy. Well, yeah, he did look like he couldn’t believe it. But, truth was, he didn’t look upset. Which made sense. T.G. was hardly Ricky’s buddy; he was a drunk loser bully.

  Besides, in Hell’s Kitchen the living tended to forget about the dead before their bodies were cold.

  Like he was proving this point, Ricky said, “So how’s this going to affect our, you know, arrangement?”

  “Not at all, far as I’m concerned.”

  “I’m going to want more.”

  “I can go a third.”

  “Fuck a third. I want half.”

  “No can do. It’s riskier for me now.”

  “Riskier? Why?”

  “There’ll be an investigation. Somebody might turn up something at T.G.’s with my name on it. I’ll have to grease more palms.” Schaeffer shrugged. “Or you can find yourself another cop to work with.”

  As if the Yellow Pages had a section, “Cops, Corrupt.”

  The detective added, “Give it a few months. After things calm down, I can go up a few more points then.”

  “To forty?”

  “Yeah, to forty.”

  The little man asked, “Can I have the Rolex?”

  “The guy’s? Tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You really want it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, it’s yours.”

  Ricky looked out over the river. It seemed to Schaeffer that a faint smile crossed his face.

  They stood in silence for a few minutes and, right on time, the tourist, Shelby, showed up. He was looking terrified and hurt and angry, which is a fucking tricky combination to get into your face all at one time.

  “I’ve got it,” he whispered. There was nothing in his hands—no briefcase or bag—but Schaeffer had been taking kickbacks and bribes for so long that he knew a lot of money can fit into a very small envelope.

  Which is just what Shelby now produced. The grim-faced tourist slipped it to Schaeffer, who counted the bills carefully.

  “The watch too.” Ricky pointed eagerly to the man’s wrist.

  “My watch?” Shelby hesitated and, grimacing, handed it to the skinny man.

  Schaeffer gave the tourist his driver’s license back. He pocketed it fast then hurried east, undoubtedly looking for a taxi that’d take him straight to the airport.

  The detective laughed to himself. So, maybe New York ain’t such a nice place to visit, after all.

  The men split the money. Ricky slipped the Rolex on his wrist but the metal band was too big and it dangled comically. “I’ll get it adjusted,” he said, putting the watch into his pocket. “They can shorten the bands, you know. It’s no big deal.”

  They decided to have a drink to celebrate and Ricky suggested Hanny’s since he had to meet somebody over there.

  As they walked along the avenue, blue-gray in the evening light, Ricky glanced at the placid Hudson River. “Check it out.”

  A large yacht eased south in the dark water.

  “Sweet,” Schaeffer said, admiring the beautiful lines of the vessel.

  Ricky asked, “How come you didn’t want in?”

  “In?”

  “The boat deal.”

  “Huh?”

  “That T.G. told you about. He said you were going to pass.”

  “What the fuck’re you talking about?”

  “The boat thing. With that guy from Florida.”

  “He never said anything to me about it.”

  “That prick.” Ricky shook his head. “Was a few days ago. This guy hangs at Hanny’s? He’s who I’m gonna meet. He’s got connections down in Florida. His crew perps these confiscated boats before they get logged in at the impound dock.”

  “DEA?”

  “Yeah. And Coast Guard.”

  Schaeffer nodded, impressed at the plan. “They disappear before they’re logged. That’s some smart shit.”

  “I’m thinking about getting one. He tells me I pay him, like, twenty Gs and I end up with a boat worth three times that. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Yeah, I’d be interested.” Bob Schaeffer had a couple of small boats. Had always wanted a really nice one. He asked, “He got anything bigger?”

  “Think he just sold a fifty-footer. I seen it down in Battery Park. It was sweet.”

&
nbsp; “Fifty feet? That’s a million-dollar boat.”

  “He said it only cost his guy two hundred or something like that.”

  “Jesus. That asshole, T.G. He never said a word to me.” Schaeffer at least felt some consolation that the punk wouldn’t be saying anything to anyone from now on.

  They walked into Hanrahan’s. Like usual, the place was nearly deserted. Ricky was looking around. The boat guy apparently wasn’t here yet.

  They ordered boiler makers. Clinked glasses, drank.

  Ricky was telling the old bartender about T.G. getting killed, when Schaeffer’s cell phone rang.

  “Schaeffer here.”

  “This’s Malone from Homicide. You heard about the T.G. Reilly hit?”

  “Yeah. What’s up with it? Any leads.” Heart pounding fast, Schaeffer lowered his head and listened real carefully.

  “Not many. But we heard something and we’re hoping you can help us out. You know the neighborhood, right?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Looks like one of T.G.’s boys was running a scam. Involved some tall paper. Six figures. We don’t know if it had anything to do with the clip, but we want to talk to him. Name of Ricky Kelleher. You know him?”

  Schaeffer glanced at Ricky, five feet away. He said into the phone, “Not sure. What’s the scam?”

  “This Kelleher was working with somebody from Florida. They came up with a pretty slick plan. They sell some loser a confiscated boat, only what happens is, there is no boat. It’s all a setup. Then when it’s time to deliver, they tell the poor asshole that the feds just raided ’em. He better forget about his money, shut up, and go to ground.”

  That little fucking prick … Schaeffer’s hand began shaking with anger as he stared at Ricky. He told the Homicide cop, “Haven’t seen him for a while. But I’ll ask around.”

  “Thanks.”

  He disconnected and walked up to Ricky, who was working on his second beer.

  “You know when that guy’s going to get here?” Schaeffer asked casually. “The boat guy?”

  “Should be any time,” the punk said.

  Schaeffer nodded, drank some of his own beer. Then he lowered his head, whispered, “That call I just got? Don’t know if you’re interested but it was my supplier. He just got a shipment from Mexico. He’s gonna meet me in the alley in a few minutes. It’s some really fine shit. He’ll give it to us for cost. You interested?”

  “Fuck yes,” the little man said.

  The men pushed out the back door into the alley. Letting Ricky precede him, Schaeffer reminded himself that after he’d strangled the punk to death, he’d have to be sure to take the rest of the bribe money out of his pocket.

  Oh, and the watch too. The detective decided that you really couldn’t have too many Rolexes after all.

  Detective Robert Schaeffer was enjoying a grande mocha outside the Starbucks on Ninth Avenue. He was sitting in a metal chair, none too comfortable, and he wondered if it was the type that outdoor furniture king Shelby distributed to his fellow hicks.

  “Hey there,” a man’s voice said to him.

  Schaeffer glanced over at a guy sitting down at the table next to him. He was vaguely familiar and even though the cop didn’t exactly recognize him, he smiled a greeting.

  Then the realization hit him like ice water and he gasped. It was the fake Internal Affairs detective, the guy T.G. had hired to clip him.

  Christ!

  The man’s right hand was inside a paper bag, where there’d be a pistol, of course.

  Schaeffer froze.

  “Relax,” the guy said, laughing at the cop’s expression. “Everything’s cool.” He extracted his hand from the bag. No gun. He was holding a raisin scone. He took a bite. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “Then who the fuck are you?”

  “You don’t need my name. I’m a private eye. That’ll do. Now listen, we’ve got a business proposition for you.” The PI looked up and waved. To Schaeffer he said, “I want to introduce you to some folks.”

  A middle-aged couple, also carrying coffee, walked outside. In shock, Schaeffer realized that the man was Shelby, the tourist they’d scammed a few days ago. The woman with him seemed familiar too. But he couldn’t place her.

  “Detective,” the man said with a cold smile.

  The woman’s gaze was chill too, but no smile was involved.

  “Whatta you want?” the cop snapped to the private eye.

  “I’ll let them explain that.” He took a large bite of scone.

  Shelby’s eyes locked onto Schaeffer’s face with a ballsy confidence that was a lot different from the timid, defeated look he’d had in the cheap hotel, sitting next to Darla, the used-to-be-a-guy hooker. “Detective, here’s the deal: A few months ago my son was on vacation here with some friends from college. He was dancing in a club near Broadway and your associates T.G. Reilly and Ricky Kelleher slipped some drugs into his pocket. Then you came in and busted him for possession. Just like with me, you set him up and told him you’d let him go if he paid you off. Only Michael decided you weren’t going to get away with it. He took a swing at you and was going to call 911. But you and T.G. Reilly dragged him into the alley and beat him so badly he’s got permanent brain damage and is going to be in therapy for years.”

  Schaeffer remembered the college kid, yeah. It’d been a bad beating. But he said, “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Shhhhh,” the private eye said. “The Shelbys hired me to find out what happened to their son. I’ve spent two months in Hell’s Kitchen, learning everything there is to know about you and those two pricks you worked with.” A nod toward the tourist. “Back to you.” The PI ate some more scone.

  The husband said, “We decided you were going to pay for what you did. Only we couldn’t go to the police—who knew how many of them were working with you? So my wife and I and our other son—Michael’s brother—came up with an idea. We decided to let you assholes do the work for us; you were going to double-cross each other.”

  “This is bullshit. You—”

  The woman snapped, “Shut up and listen.” She explained: They set up a sting in Hanny’s bar. The private eye pretended to be a scam artist from Florida selling stolen boats and their older son played a young guy from Jersey who’d been duped out of his money. This got Ricky’s attention, and he talked his way into the phony boat scam. Staring at Schaeffer, she said, “We knew you liked boats, so it made sense that Ricky’d try to set you up.”

  The husband added, “Only we needed some serious cash on the table, a bunch of it—to give you losers some real incentive to betray each other.”

  So he went to T.G.’s hangout and asked about a hooker, figuring that the three of them would set up an extortion scam.

  He chuckled. “I kept hoping you’d keep raising the bidding when you were blackmailing me. I wanted at least six figures in the pot.”

  T.G. was their first target. That afternoon the private eye pretended to be a hit man hired by T.G. to kill Schaeffer so he’d get all the money.

  “You!” the detective whispered, staring at the wife. “You’re the woman who screamed.”

  Shelby said, “We needed to give you the chance to escape—so you’d go straight to T.G.’s place and take care of him.”

  Oh lord. The hit, the fake Internal Affairs cop … It was all a setup!

  “Then Ricky took you to Hanrahan’s, where he was going to introduce you to the boat dealer from Florida.”

  The private eye wiped his mouth and leaned froward. “Hello,” he said in a deeper voice. “This’s Malone from Homicide. ”

  “Oh fuck,” Schaeffer spat out. “You let me know that Ricky’d set me up. So …” His voice faded.

  The PI whispered, “You’d take care of him too.

  The cold smile on his face again, Shelby said, “Two perps down. Now we just have the last one. You.”

  “What’re you going to do?” the cop whispered.

  The wife said, “Our s
on’s got to have years of therapy. He’ll never recover completely.”

  Schaeffer shook his head. “You’ve got evidence, right?”

  “Oh, you bet. Our older son was outside of Mack’s waiting for you when you went there to get T.G. We’ve got real nice footage of you shooting him. Two in the head. Real nasty.”

  “And the sequel,” the private eye said. “In the alley behind Hanrahan’s. Where you strangled Ricky.” He added, “Oh, and we’ve got the license number of the truck that came to get Ricky’s body in the dumpster. We followed it to Jersey. We can implicate a bunch of very unpleasant people, who aren’t going to be happy they’ve been fingered because of you.”

  “And, in case you haven’t guessed,” Shelby said, “we made three copies of the tape and they’re sitting in three different lawyers’ office safes. Anything happens to any one of us, and off they go to Police Plaza.”

  “You’re as good as murderers yourself,” Schaeffer muttered. “You used me to kill two people.”

  Shelby laughed. “Semper Fi… I’m a former Marine and I’ve been in two wars. Killing vermin like you doesn’t bother me one bit.”

  “All right,” the cop said in a disgusted grumble, “what do you want?”

  “You’ve got the vacation house on Fire Island, you’ve got two boats moored in Oyster Bay, you’ve got—”

  “I don’t need a fucking inventory. I need a number.”

  “Basically your entire net worth. Eight hundred sixty thousand dollars. Plus my hundred fifty back … And I want it in the next week. Oh, and you pay his bill too.” Shelby nodded toward the private eye.

  “I’m good,” the man said. “But very expensive.” He finished the scone and brushed the crumbs onto the sidewalk.

  Shelby leaned forward. “One more thing: my watch.”

  Schaeffer stripped off the Rolex and tossed it to Shelby.

  The couple rose. “So long, detective,” the tourist said.

  “Love to stay and talk,” Mrs. Shelby added, “but we’re going to see some sights. And then we’re going for a carriage ride in Central Park before dinner.” She paused and looked down at the cop. “I just love it here. It’s true what they say, you know. New York really is a nice place to visit.”

  THE NEXT BEST THING