A Black Sail

by Rich Zahradnik

  It had taken an entire day Monday to track Reggie down. On the phone, Cashman at the Two-Six had said they’d gone looking for Reggie at his Morningside Drive corner and come up empty. That was no shock to Taylor. Cashman had no other intelligence. No shock either.

  Next he’d gone to Lowell’s new place. At first he thought he’d moved on, but found him in a bigger apartment two floors up. It was already half full of junkies.

  “Junkies tell junkies,” Lowell had said. “Cheapest advertising there is. I was feeling better so I figured I’d get open.” He smiled, but then brought his hand to his split lip, closing his eyes in pain. If nothing else, Lowell was a Harlem entrepreneur who knew how to bounce right back. He’d only asked one thing of Taylor. That he not return. Ever. Taylor was bad for business.

  Taylor had agreed, on the condition that Lowell give him Reggie’s location. He’d handed the man thirty of Grandpop’s bucks. Lowell had told him to come back in an hour and whispered to Taylor the new corner when he did. He’d say nothing else. Mary’s death had scared everyone in there.

  Reggie’s location made sense. It was in a different precinct—the Three-Two—so he was taking advantage of the poor communication within the NYPD. He’d also continue tapping the college market. The City College of New York was half a block away.

  In pursuit of the story, he’d also visited Mary’s roommates at Columbia yesterday. They’d cried most of the time, which was odd, since they were the ones who’d forced her out of her dorm. They claimed not to know much about her, only that her parents had flown in, mumbled Why again? when the topic of heroin had come up, and returned to the airport to disappear into the cornfields.

  The tall ship’s sailors had marched yesterday as tickertape—actually computer printouts and red and blue bank deposit slips—twirled down on the parade. The ships, barks, and boats and every other floating oddity were departing.

  Now it was Wednesday. And Mary was still dead.

  He drank the coffee, but had no interest in the roll. He couldn’t shake the guilt. It would race through him like the chill from a bad fever. He’d replay the events that led to her murder, like he hoped something would change. Going with her to Reggie’s corner. Both of them just escaping from the shooting gallery. The interview at the Oddity about pushers selling China White. Samantha taking Mary to the halfway house. Nope, nothing changed.

  Taylor’s best stories helped victims—or at least got their story out to the world if they were beyond help. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to put them beyond help. Nice euphemism. Dead. She was dead.

  In between the waves of guilt, he lived with bleak gray sadness. The single-minded drive to write what happened to Mary and what was happening to New York was all that propelled him along.

  Taylor stood at his desk and looked at Cramly. “Still a story.”

  “We’ve got news to cover now that the damn Bicentennial is over.”

  “The DA didn’t talk about the drugs. No one knows about the mob war. I’ve still got all that. It’s still a story. I’ve got a pusher to stake out. Then a source to meet.”

  “I want copy from you.” Cramly looked to Novak’s office, which was dark because Novak had taken the week off following the Bicentennial weekend, infuriating Cramly even more. “Two cop stories and the subway safety feature for afternoon newscasts.”

  Taylor opened the office door.

  “Goddammit, Taylor. Not even your good buddy Novak will keep putting up with this. When he hears you don’t even have an exclusive anymore ….”

  He closed the door on the threat and walked to the elevator for the ride to the lobby and scenic Times Square. He’d explain himself to Novak when his friend got back. Apologize if necessary. He knew the City News Bureau had to get stories from everyone every day. Knew it, but had no room for more guilt.

  The air was comfortable and dry as he walked to the subway, where the climate would change for the worse. The subway’s tunnels retained heat and humidity for a week after the weather broke up in the outside world.

  He boarded the No. 2 and sat for the 15-minute ride.

  Taylor walked from the subway to his usual post, half a block away from Reggie with a phone booth offering decent cover. He was working on being less stupid this time. The day turned out to be another bust. Reggie sold to addicts. No one else showed. Reggie pulled up stakes.

  With nothing to show for a second day on the stakeout, he rode south again to wait at the Blarney Rock for Jersey Stein.

  For two days, Samantha had tried to cheer him up, finally giving up last night. Then she’d become angry. She’d said he wasn’t being fair to himself and wasn’t listening to her at all. And then she’d gone quiet, and nothing worried Taylor more than Samantha quiet. He needed to mend things with her. That much he could see through the gray mist and his desperate desire to get the story. Whatever happened, he needed Samantha. Not to back him up, but to be there with him, in his life.

  “You dodging me?” Taylor set down the pony he’d ordered on arrival. He’d ignored his drinking rules Sunday night and now regularly stretched them to the point of breaking. “Started calling you on Monday.”

  “Lot of work now the happy holiday is over.” Stein took the stool next to Taylor.

  Taylor slid over the stamp bag with the black sail on it. “Like a drug war?”

  “That little thing is a drug war?”

  “Black Sail. My source told me it contains China White. Being sold by certain pushers in Harlem supplied by the Leung tong.”

  Stein’s hazel eyes showed no reaction. “This is all off the record.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What else is new?”

  Stein ordered an RC Cola. He never drank, something that normally bothered Taylor when he was drinking himself. Today he didn’t care.

  “China White is moving into Harlem. Slowly. But there’s no war on. No bodies piling up.”

  “Bridget Collucci!” Taylor’s voice rose, and he looked around to see who might be listening. “That’s a body. We both know what was taped to her.”

  “Called my buddy at the Brooklyn DA. They’re nowhere on that case. No physical evidence. No witnesses. The husband’s offering nothing. Okay, that’s not exactly accurate. He’s cooperated but given them nothing that helps.”

  “Did they ask him if a war is on with the tong? ’Cause mobsters don’t usually volunteer that kind of info. I sat on the Bridget Collucci story only to get beat by the goddamn News. Maybe now I put out a story about six bags of heroin taped to her body.”

  “Maybe you do. The Brooklyn DA likes his name in the papers. I’ll tell you one thing. That DA wants to prosecute quickly when a housewife is murdered. If he’s not doing that, the detectives haven’t given him anything to move on.”

  “That DA prefers a black man to fit up for the crime when it’s a white woman.”

  “Happens too much in that office. Give you that. But we both know this case is different, even if we don’t know what the drugs mean.”

  “I’ve got a second body for you in this war that isn’t.”

  He told Stein about the murder of Mary Singer. Midway through, Stein pulled out two of the three-inch spiral notebooks he carried. Looking between one with a red cover and one with a blue, he chose red, flipped it open and jotted notes. He stared at his writing for a moment after Taylor had finished.

  “This one hasn’t crossed my desk.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Junkies aren’t a high priority.”

  “She was a Columbia student.”

  “Lot of kids at school on the needle. In New York, once you’re a junkie, you’re a junkie. Why didn’t you give this to the detectives?”

  Red mist rose from Taylor’s core, filled his veins, and reached his head. He swallowed half the beer to try and cool the anger, at the same time knowing alcohol was likely to do the opposite.

  “I did.” He snapped off the words. “Talked to a detective the night she was killed. Wasn’t interested. You said it. Jun
kies aren’t a priority. The source who gave me the info on her killers, I’m not sharing that name. I’ve seen what happens when junkies get interrogated. And dumped with the whole street knowing they talked to the cops.”

  Taylor ordered another beer.

  Stein considered a minute. “This gets any more screwed up … I’ve got a job to do. Villains to put before a judge. If I need a name, there’s legal ways to get it from you.” Stein looked like making the threat put a bad taste in his mouth. “You’re up the wrong tree on this drug war. Yeah, China White’s out there. Dealers will definitely kill a junkie that fingers them. That’s no proof the Italians and the Chinese are at each other’s throats.”

  “Was there an alert out one of the Op Sail ships might be bringing in drugs?”

  Stein smiled. “Drugs the only story you care about these days?”

  “New York doesn’t have a drug problem?”

  “Give you that. One of many. Story went around that a boat from one of the islands might use the celebrations as cover. Never got more concrete. I hear the NYPD captain who asked for permission to search certain ships got a chewing out from his chief that may make it into the record books. The Coast Guard, as the host, didn’t want to know about it, even though it’s their job to search suspect vessels before they dock. You know as well as I. Took years negotiating to get some of the ships to attend. Searches, arrests. Be a diplomatic nightmare.”

  “So the drugs landed?”

  “If there were drugs, they landed, since there were no searches. No way of knowing for sure.”

  “What about that battle on the water Saturday night? Two boats, gunfire, one destroyed by explosion.”

  “Heard very little. The Coast Guard’s jurisdiction, and they’re keeping that one close.”

  “ID on the victims?”

  “Not even a name of the boat.”

  “Why? Operation Sail’s over.”

  “No idea. They’re a military organization. They operate their own way. I’ve got no in there.”

  “Safe to say they haven’t caught the attackers or we’d have heard.”

  “Very safe.” Stein opened the blue notebook. “I told you I’d check out Liam O’Malley. He runs a smallish Irish firm out in Queens. Loan sharking, labor racketeering, some extortion. His operations have shrunk since the Knapp Commission corruption trials. Had a bunch of Queens cops on the pad. Harder to do business without their help.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Not that I can find.”

  “Three gangs. New heroin supply in town. And you insist no drug war?”

  “Things are most dangerous when they aren’t what they seem. Particularly when you still think they are.”

  “Thank you, Confucius.”

  Stein left the Blarney Rock. Taylor considered continuing his session at the bar. The only thing that got him off the stool was the desire to get home and see Samantha. Make up with her. Tell her he appreciated how she worried about him. That was the part of this day he couldn’t afford to screw up.

  Chapter 16

  The nurse at the desk at Roosevelt Hospital looked at Taylor with disgust. Whatever the professor had been up to, the sins of the father were raining down on the son. Taylor had called the apartment before heading home and learned from Samantha the hospital needed him urgently. The last thing he wanted tonight.

  The nurse slapped a clipboard on the Formica counter. “Your father wants to go home.”

  “Oh, okay—”

  “We don’t think he should. The doctor doesn’t think he should. He won’t listen to us.”

  “He doesn’t listen to me either.”

  “No, I imagine not. He’s too busy insulting those trying to help him.”

  “I’m sorry.” He paused, embarrassed. “What do you need me to do?”

  “He showed up here without any cash. He can’t walk home.”

  The professor was yelling at the nurse retrieving his clothes. He continued in a similar vein, cursing any staff they saw, until they were in the cab on the way to his West 78th Street apartment. That was when he turned on Taylor.

  “Forget I was in the hospital?”

  “You ran out of visits when you insulted Samantha.”

  “Bitch of a cop. I hope you—”

  “Stop!” Taylor had directed the command at the cabbie, leaning forward to be clear. The man complied, pulling over at 100th.

  “You want to walk from here?”

  “I can’t walk.”

  “Crawl. I don’t give a shit. Nothing about Samantha.”

  For the rest of the ride, the professor mumbled various insults aimed at Taylor—the themes being ungrateful sons, their poor judgment, lack of respect, and meaningless jobs. Taylor had heard it all before—though seldom when his father was stone cold sober. What a sad victory it was to be insulted so his father would leave Samantha out of it …. As nasty as the man could be, Taylor wasn’t sure he could have dumped his ass on the street.

  “Did you enjoy the DTs?”

  “Don’t remember them.”

  “You can’t drink. The docs are using all kinds of medical terminology to say your liver’s fucked. Booze will kill you.”

  His father’s apartment was worse than when Taylor last visited. Bags of garbage hadn’t made it out of the living room in at least a week. Taylor took them all to the trash chute, yet the living room still reeked of the same sour, rotting food stink that had come up from the chute. It would take a cleaning crew to deal with the mess still here—a full day on the kitchen alone.

  Taylor couldn’t leave the man standing there. Loyalty was a strange emotion when no love was attached.

  He stripped the bed, made it, helped him change and get in. His father refused to respond when Taylor asked if he needed anything, yelled when Taylor listed specific groceries he could go get.

  “I’m a fucking grown man. They’ll deliver.”

  Taylor wasn’t even out the front door when his father dialed Broadway Liquor at 85th Street.

  Yeah, they’ll deliver that too. Your death.

  Taylor would chase all over town trying to help strangers by writing their stories. There was so little he could do for his father. Was that Taylor’s fault? His father had been drunk and mean for as long as Taylor could remember. The professor had never struck him, but boy, did he have something nasty to say for every occasion. He’d heaped abuse on Taylor for skipping college and taking a copyboy’s job at the Messenger-Telegram. The work wasn’t dignified enough, held none of the significance of the intellectual life the professor claimed to so value.

  Once Taylor’s mother died, months went by until something big enough happened to bring them together. Like his brother Billy going MIA in the jungles of Vietnam. At the service, his father had called Billy a hero. Before then, his father had told Billy to his face that he was “a fascist fighting a fascist’s war.” No. Billy was just a kid trying to get away from his father.

  The Messenger-Telegram had been Taylor’s escape. Maybe. Taylor hadn’t seen it that way at the time. He’d been enthralled by sources and stories and bylines. Page one a daily test of what he could accomplish. Today, if he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see a man helping strays because he couldn’t do anything for his father. How could he help a snarling dog, teeth bared, mouth foaming? It was more about the way his father made him hurt—a sense of sadness and loss that left him empty and drained. Taylor’s only answer for that had been to find another story.

  Reggie passed heroin to a customer, another student-looking kid. Taylor had been watching long enough that he could identify half the man’s clientele. Middle-aged black man. Fat man, white (strangely fat, in fact, for this addiction). Pair of women who looked aged beyond their years. A black teen. A white teen. A Hispanic teen. They rolled on past for the third day on stakeout. Reggie had every race and age covered.

  What Taylor didn’t have covered was a Midtown press conference on last week’s Empire State Building jewelry heist. He’d pick up the detail
s by phone, but knew he should have gone in person. He’d ignored an important assignment. Problem was he couldn’t abandon the stakeout. He was obsessed. This was his only living connection to the murderers of Mary Singer.

  Before arriving, he’d finally written up what the News didn’t publish yesterday: Bridget Collucci was buried in the harbor with six bags of heroin taped to her. There hadn’t been any point in holding on to it any longer. The other papers would learn the details soon enough. He’d left out the drug war. That still lived in the realm of theory—or maybe only in Taylor’s imagination. The story hadn’t appeased Cramly. Taylor didn’t care.

  An hour after the story went out, he’d received a call from a flunky in the Brooklyn DA’s office who wanted to yell at him. Taylor was succinct in reply.

  “I was on the fucking boat.”

  “What were you doing on the boat?”

  “Ride-along for a Bicentennial feature.”

  “Christ save me from the Bicentennial.”

  “Tell your boss I know there’s more going on here. I’m going to get the story.”

  “Are you threatening the Brooklyn District Attorney?” The high and mighty tone.

  “Nah, giving you my job description.”

  Reggie sold several bags—it was hard to tell how many—to an older man who could easily be a professor of the City College student who’d bought earlier.

  The call from the DA’s flunky had been the only thing the Bridget Collucci story had produced by the time he had to leave for Harlem. No leads or tips. Nothing. Taylor wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He mainly wrote it to show the world he had something no one else did on a story he’d sat on at least a day too long. Did it make up for being late? Nope. You finished in one of two places in journalism—first or last.

  A hand squeezed his arm. He jumped—and relaxed almost immediately. A clean soapy fragrance. Prell. Samantha kissed him on the cheek.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Though I’d stop by on the way home?”