Cruel Mercy

by David Mark

  “The Heldens were here again,” says Roisin quietly, leaning in. “I don’t know how long they’ll wait.”

  McAvoy tries to keep the panic from his face. “I swear, not half an hour ago the FBI told me that Valentine is not a suspect. He didn’t do this.”

  “Then where is he?” asks Roisin, and she immediately softens her features in apology for snapping. “What’s happened to him?”

  McAvoy bites his lip. He wants to ask her something but fears the answer. She reads his face like a large-print book and her eyes grow large as she speaks straight into his soul.

  “I didn’t know,” she says. “Swear to God, I never. If Valentine went there for a fight he kept it quiet. Same with Brishen. And Father Whelan would surely never have written Valentine a letter if he’d known it was for fighting.”

  McAvoy says nothing. Hopes she’ll speak again.

  “I told Dad what you’ve found out. I don’t think he was surprised.”

  “Can I speak to him?”

  “Dad?” asks Roisin, surprised. “He’s drunk a gallon of poteen, near enough. Him and the men are tooling up—calling in favors. He’s not here.”

  McAvoy frowns, annoyed at the world’s failure to cooperate. “I have questions about Father Whelan,” he says dejectedly. “How well does your dad know him? How did Brishen persuade him to write a letter for Valentine?”

  “Valentine went to church sometimes,” says Roisin, looking around for an explanation. “And Father Whelan and Brishen are really close. You should see the poor priest. He’s carrying such a weight on him, so he is. I think he wants to go over there to be at Brishen’s side. but he’s doing so much good work here. You should see the parish priests! They’re scuttling around making us all cups of tea and bringing sandwiches and trying their damnedest to look like they haven’t been treating our kind like scum for centuries. Father Whelan’s been here almost constantly for the past forty-eight hours. He’s taking confession, leading the prayers. I swear, if it weren’t for him staying at the site, I think the Heldens would have already started shooting.”

  McAvoy nods. He doesn’t know what advice to give.

  “He’s a good man,” says Roisin. “I know bad men and he’s not one, and that’s nothing to do with the robes or the faith. He’s kind. He took me to one side and said he understood how hard this must be for me. He gave me a blessing. Gave me one for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Da told him you were out there helping. Father Whelan said it meant the world to him, knowing Brishen wasn’t alone out there. How is he? How does he look?”

  The taxi moves forward a few feet and McAvoy allows himself to hope they are about to make some headway. A moment later the car stops and the Indian driver gives vent to a torrent of abuse.

  “I’m on my way to the hospital now. I want to see Brishen for myself. See how he is. Get my mind around what I’m actually here to do. And then I’ll have some questions for the man he left Saint Colman’s Church with—Mr. Molony.”

  “Do you want me to ask Father Whelan about him? You said they were old friends.”

  “Not yet,” says McAvoy. “I need to work some things out. If Father Whelan does get talking about his time in New York, text me. I’d love to have a listen.”

  “Would I be your partner in crime?” asks Roisin impishly. “That would be exciting. I’ve got his number, if it’s helpful. His mobile. Told me to ring if things were getting too much.”

  McAvoy nods appreciatively, looking out the window at the front of a large museum dedicated to the history of the tenement building. If things were different, he would like to go inside. Would like to poke around and fill his head with new knowledge. He wonders if he will ever get the chance.

  “On Sunday they’ll be collecting for the families,” says Roisin. “Da will be going to Mass, come what may. I want you home, Aector, but if we don’t get some answers I don’t know what you’ll come home to.”

  McAvoy closes his eyes. He doesn’t want his wife to see his fear and hopelessness.

  “I have to go,” he says, and puts his hand to the screen. On the halting site in Galway, Roisin does the same. Both feel the cold, flat surface of their computer screen but in the moment, they feel a familiar caress. McAvoy holds his hand there for several heartbeats, his big fingers dwarfing those of his wife. As he finally lowers his hand, he sees the blue ink on her palm. He is about to question it when the car lurches forward and in a shower of Urdu swear words, the driver performs a hard turn in the middle of the road. The notebook slips off McAvoy’s knees and as he grabs for it, he severs the connection. As he looks at the blank screen, he sees nothing but his own face, and the desire to punch it to fragments threatens to consume him.

  He hides inside himself for the forty-minute journey, does not give a damn about the changing neighborhoods or the swelling darkness or the shifting tone beneath the tires. When they arrive at the hospital, he does not question the exorbitant price of the ride. He climbs out into air cold enough to take his breath away and passes a handful of bills to the driver, who fails to thank him for the handsome tip. The cab pulls away even as McAvoy is retrieving his bag and trying to close the rear door.

  He turns from the car park to look at the hulking mass that is the neurological specialist hospital where Brishen Ayres is a patient. He does not want to go inside, to look at the ruination of a decent man’s face and be forced into apologizing for his inadequacies.

  Huddling into his coat, McAvoy approaches the large sliding door of the reception area. He stops in front of it, as if needing a moment’s pause to make a decision. Then, with a nod to himself, he enters the large, warm atrium and gives his best smile to the pretty Filipina woman behind the desk. She does not have much interest in his warrant card, but when he explains that he is family and has come all the way from Ireland, she makes a call. Ten minutes later, a large black woman who smells extraordinarily floral is all but linking arms with McAvoy as she leads him to the elevator and rides with him to the sixth floor.

  “Down there’s the third room on the right. He’s going to wake up soon, I tell you that much, and there are a lot of people in this hospital who would give their left leg to know the color of his eyes. I’m sure you’ll already know, being family and all, but I won’t cheat.”

  The nurse is a force of nature and keeps grabbing McAvoy by the forearms to tell him what a good man he is. As she clasps him to herself, she raises a finger skywards and says “Praise Jesus.” McAvoy does not know if it is an instruction or a suggestion, so decides to leave Him out of it altogether.

  Gathering himself as he straightens his clothes, McAvoy moves down the pristine corridor. He closes his eyes and steps into Brishen’s room.

  A small, round man is sitting on a hard-backed chair. A Bible is open in his lap, the words blurred and indistinct on tissue-thin pages. The man is perhaps five feet tall, though he is quite round at the middle and his head is completely spherical. The bald patch on the top of his head and the glasses he wears are perfectly round. He looks as though he is entirely composed of circles.

  His name is Mr. Molony.

  And as he looks at McAvoy, his prayers die on his tongue.

  —

  Detective Ronald Alto should be feeling good. Sure, he feels as though he’s wearing somebody else’s skin and is belching a medley of bourbon, antacid tablets, and ibuprofen, but most of the detectives in the Seventh feel this way at midmorning on a weekday and would still look favorably on any suggestions that involve spicy food, a round of shots, and a topless bar.

  Alto’s had so many slaps on the back this morning, his shoulder is starting to hurt. It seems that everybody from his colonel to the guy sweeping the snow off the front porch has heard about the collar last night, and he will not have to buy himself a drink for a long time. Ellison is about to be charged. In the next few minutes, Alto will stand beside Colonel
Deane and the deputy director of operations and tell the assembled news teams that a dangerous predator has been arrested. It looks as if Ellison is ready to cough to a string of date rapes, and despite the desperate attempts of his lawyers to shut him up, he has already put his hands up to slipping the fatal dose into the dead girl’s drink last summer. The fight has gone out of him. McAvoy slapped the smarm right out of his mouth. He’s sitting in a holding cell, blubbering and sniveling and saying he’s so very sorry. Alto’s getting the credit for the whole damn thing, as if it were a subtle, clever piece of police work. In truth, he got himself so drunk he could barely see and then sent a good man into a lion’s den, armed with nothing more than half-truths and a conscience. That he left McAvoy sitting forlornly in an ice cream parlor while he himself came back to Pitt Street for ovations and fanfare is weighing on Alto’s mind.

  In front of him, the decrepit computer with the missing keys shows the same old reflection. Hunched-over, unfit men and women, lounging in chairs with feet on desks, flicking elastic bands or scribbling notes on files with one hand and eating MSG-rich snacks with the other. Alto normally feels at home here, but today, something has changed. He feels like a fraud. He knows there are good reasons to keep McAvoy at arm’s length and he knows there will be repercussions if anybody finds out that the “Good Samaritan” whom Colonel Deane is so keen to talk about at the press conference is actually a visiting detective from England seeking the killer of Shay Helden.

  “You rerunning a porno in your head?” comes a familiar voice at his elbow. “Your mind’s so far away, you might as well be in Tijuana.”

  Alto looks up at the big, fleshy countenance of Detective Hugh Redding. He has jelly on his lower lip and is drinking a mug of coffee brewed so strong that it may well climb over the rim and start heading for the door.

  “Long night,” says Alto, pushing a finger under his amber glasses and worrying at his red-seamed eyes.

  “Good result, though,” says Redding in a rare moment of sincerity. “The captain will be tumescent.”

  Alto pulls a face. “You think?”

  “Positively engorged. We’ll need a syringe to calm him down.”

  “Is that why you keep one by your bed? I wasn’t sure, and your wife couldn’t answer me.”

  “No, the ball gag keeps her quiet. It was a good buy. Thank your mother for the recommendation.”

  Alto and Redding have worked together for years. For a short time they were on assignment to Homicide South and their clear-up rate rivaled that of the most experienced men on the elite squad. But neither man had the right connections to make the move permanent. Neither shared a rabbi or a priest with a senior officer or was willing to spend weekends mowing the captain’s lawn in return for the nod of approval. They were rotated back to the Seventh and have been perfectly at ease here—even if they get an almighty kick out of upstaging the officers in their old squad.

  Alto considers the big man and decides to confide. “Can I ask you something?”

  “It’s perfectly natural. Happens to everybody. It doesn’t mean you’re a faggot . . .”

  “I’m serious, Hugh.”

  Redding licks the jelly off his lip and pulls up a chair, which he sits on backward, saloon-style. “You okay, man?”

  Alto rubs his hands together as if brushing away dirt. “The feds,” he says quietly. “They’ve been running an operation. The Chechens and the first of the Five Families have been getting friendly. The feds had an agent in Sergey Volotov’s organization. God only knows who they’ve got in with the Italians.”

  Redding retrieves a Twinkie from the inside pocket of his crumpled suit and lovingly reads the ingredients before he starts to unwrap it. “So?” he asks between bites. “That’s what they do.”

  “The Irish boys who got hurt upstate . . .” says Alto.

  “The case you got saddled with for no fucking good reason?”

  “It came to me on paper but it was never really mine. The feds had spoken to the bosses and explained it was gang-related. Two Irish boys seem to have made enemies of either the Chechens or the Italians or both, and we ended up with a bloodbath.”

  “The shit just seems to fall like rain sometimes,” says Redding, looking forlornly at the empty Twinkie wrapper and patting himself down for another.

  “And the Scottish cop—”

  “English, you said.”

  “He’s from Scotland, though.”

  “Right, what about him?”

  “He’s got powerful friends. Or enemies, I can’t tell. The Brits got him permission to come over and look into the case. And because there was a whiff of politics about it, the bosses agreed. They asked me to make him feel important—give him some bits and pieces and keep him out of harm’s way.”

  “Right, usual babysitting stuff. We’ve all done it.”

  Alto scratches at his chest, as if something is biting him. “Last night, he helped me bring down Ellison. Slapped him so hard I thought his head was going to come off. And you know something else? He put himself between my gun and Ellison. Wouldn’t let me shoot the bastard.”

  Redding cocks his head. “He a pussy?”

  “I don’t know what he is. But he’s found things out, Hugh. Stuff the feds don’t want him to know about. This morning I had to watch as this stuck-up bitch told him he’d outstayed his welcome and had to head home.”

  Redding nods, anticipating this. “And?”

  “And I don’t think people realize how much this matters. There’s a blood feud back in Ireland and his wife’s family is in the thick of it. His brother-in-law is missing and it seems like nobody wants him found. And then there’s this priest . . .”

  “Priest?”

  “In Galway. Grew up here. Used to be a priest here. The Irish boys live a stone’s throw from his fucking place in Galway. He greased the wheels to get them over here. They went to his old church and met with a man who I know for a fact we have a duty to talk to.”

  Redding scoots a little closer, his breath sweet on Alto’s face.

  “I’m always happy to encourage my brother officers to fuck their careers,” says Redding playfully. “It gives us something to talk about between jobs. But this sounds like it’s got trouble spilling out of it on all sides. Maybe you should just enjoy the plaudits and send this Scotsman a case of decent Scotch and try to forget about it.”

  Alto looks down, morose.

  “There’s more, isn’t there,” says Redding resignedly. “You’ve done something silly out of guilt, I can tell. You know what happens to you when you get dug in, Ron. You know where it led us . . .”

  “I had to look. I’m a cop. And I owe him. I bribed him into going into that club. I owe him.”

  “What did you find?”

  Alto looks past him, at the red ink on the whiteboard that’s stuck up on the black wall. The red spells out the name of the recently deceased: the cases unsolved. Alto finds it blurring as he stares.

  “Father Whelan has visited the U.S. once a year for the past thirty-one years. I’ve checked with Rikers—when Paulie Pugliesca did a stretch, Father Whelan came to see him. He’s his confessor. Always has been.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t know. I can’t make it fit. But, look . . . you remember the lawyer? The things we found?”

  Redding speaks through gritted teeth. “That went away,” he hisses. “It nearly cost you everything and we still don’t know what you found.”

  “That’s the link!” says Alto animatedly. “I can’t understand it, but it’s there. Look! We’ve always known Molony was valuable to the old man, we just never had more than guesses to go on and we got hauled off it before we even scratched the surface. But I’ve pushed a little harder, just on the QT. Molony did this to himself in nineteen seventy-six.” He grabs his notebook from the desk. He clicks on an image and the screen floods with a p
icture that makes his stomach heave.

  “Jesus,” says Redding. He lets out an angry sigh, the detective in him and the human being warring for supremacy. “Thank fuck they told us to stop before we saw that. I’d hate to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  “A lawyer, important to the Mob, who once hated himself enough to hack his balls off. A priest from the same neighborhood. A dead man from the priest’s town in Ireland . . .”

  “Let me think a moment,” says Redding, rubbing a knuckle against his forehead. He takes a breath. “Molony, the lawyer—he met up with your Irish boys, yeah? The Irish boys who know Father Whelan.”

  “They left the church together,” begins Alto. “It might not be important,” he adds, but his every instinct is telling him that it is.

  “You’ve got the press conference,” says Redding. “The world’s lining up to shake your hand and you worked so damn hard to let the lawyer thing drop.”

  “None of that matters,” says Alto, and means it. “This does.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to help McAvoy.”

  Redding considers him. “You’re taking him into the lion’s den,” he says, shaking his head. “The old man will eat him alive.”

  Alto gives a little shrug. “He might not. You haven’t seen him—the way he affects people. It’s creepy but in the right way. And what has the old man got to threaten me with, anyway? I’m here now. Homicide was long ago. And more than anything else, McAvoy would take the risk. Even if I gave him the option, he’d choose what has to be done.”

  “Sounds like you’re falling for him,” says Redding, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’d rather know him than be him,” says Alto, and means it. “Besides, I’m helping ensure he has a genuine New York tourist experience.”

  “With the head of the Mob?”

  “It will make an anecdote when he gets home.”

  “If he gets home.”

  “Don’t be a buzzkill,” says Alto, picking up the phone. “Now, let’s shake the tree . . .”