Upon this discovery, Riordan checked the fastener corrals. There, too, existed irregularly shaped damp spots upon the concrete, as if multiple bags of supplies had once rested there and had recently been carted off. As recently, perhaps, as the past few hours.
Riordan stood up to check out the small-parts bins that were mounted on the wall above, but before he could do so, a shot rang out. Acting quickly, he dropped to the ground and rolled toward the sheet-metal racks, getting some shots off along the way. Squeezing into the first of the bins, he wedged himself between two thick pieces of sheet metal. The narrow opening acted as a makeshift shield, while allowing him to counter the gunfire emanating from the warehouse door.
The anonymous shooter scrambled behind one of the metal warehouse doors, but the sheltered angle made aiming at Riordan next to impossible. Looking for another hiding spot, the figure crossed the entranceway, but, after several volleys, he eventually fell over, landing face forward. Riordan, gun still drawn, rose from his spot in the sheet-metal bin and carefully approached the body.
After a few kicks with the toe of his shoe, he rolled him over.
It was the short, stocky figure of Tony Del Vecchio.
A barefoot Rosie sprinted down Wright Street, trying the handle of every door she passed along the way. The shipyard and dockworkers, however, had long left for the day, leaving the area vacant. Desperately, she decided to scream for help, in case somewhere nearby, some person still remained.
As she opened her mouth, she felt an incredible force come crashing down on her back, knocking her face first into the pavement. “You didn’t think I’d let you get away that easily, did you?” Delaney taunted as he lay on top of her.
Meanwhile Rosie, having had the wind knocked out of her, gasped for air.
“Come on!” He stood up and dragged Rosie to her feet, scraping both her knees against the hard, rough surface of the asphalt. “Come on!”
Rosie stood up and, having finally caught her breath, swallowed the pool of saliva that had formed in her open mouth. The substance had the taste of dirt and salt. She raised a finger to the corner of her mouth and removed it, only to find it covered in blood and tiny bits of gravel.
“Come on,” Delany urged again and shoved the cold steel of the gun in her back.
Slowly, she started to walk toward Beard Street. She felt exhausted and her entire body ached. “Why are you doing this to me? Why not just kill me? Kill me like you did Finch.”
“I didn’t kill Finch.”
“No? You were his accomplices, weren’t you? You and Del Vecchio?”
Delaney shook his head. “It’s not as easy as that, Rosie. It’s not that simple.”
“Try me,” she challenged as she spun around.
“Keep walking and I will.” He waved the gun.
She obeyed and Delaney launched into his story. “It all started with the Normandie fire. Remember the whole scare about it being sabotaged by the Nazis or the Nips?”
“Yes, but the government found no evidence of that. They said the fire was caused by a spark from a welding torch.”
“Yeah, but did anyone believe it?”
“Sure, lots of people did.”
“But they still wondered, didn’t they? Admit it, you did, too.”
“You’re right. I did. Still do.”
“Do you know why? Because every day the people of this city look out at that ship’s hull lying in the Hudson River. And every time they go down to the water, be it Jersey or Long Island, they see German U-boats right off the shore. As you can imagine, the government doesn’t like having their navy’s ability to protect its citizens thrown into question. Problem is, until all their ships are built, there’s not much they can do. So they decided they needed a fleet of vessels that could temporarily handle the job of scaring off the U-boats. And because of the talk that Nazis and Nips were here on land, they needed a bunch of people who knew the waterfront and could identify potential spy activity.”
“Where would they possibly find either?” she asked as the storm closed in.
“Easy. The mob.”
Rosie stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re telling me that the United States government made a pact with—with—”
“Yep, Naval Intelligence, the Manhattan D.A., and good old Lucky Luciano all in bed together.” He prodded Rosie to keep walking. “Joe Lanza, the king of the Fulton Fish Market, now rules the harbor with his fleet of fishing boats, and Frank Costello—”
“Luciano’s right-hand man,” Rosie commented as she recalled her conversation with Riordan.
“—along with some guy named Anastasia is in charge of the waterfront.”
“All of it?”
“From the docks, to the streets, to the very land Pushey Shipyard sits on. In exchange for all this ‘protection, ’ Luciano gets a transfer from Dannemora to some place down south with a hedge fence instead of barbed wire.”
“And the rivets ... ?”
“Costello’s scheme. You give a mobster full rein over a neighborhood and they’re going to want to make money off the deal.”
“I can’t believe it. You mean the government would—”
“Oh, you better believe they would.”
“And you? Why are you doing this? How could you do this? Don’t you care about those sailors’ lives?”
“Same reason anyone does anything these days: money. That’s why you showed up at the yard in the first place, wasn’t it?”
They turned onto Beard Street. “I’m doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I’m not hurting anyone with what I do. It’s hardly the same thing.”
“Isn’t it? Eh, maybe not.”
Rosie recalled Del Vecchio’s cigarette lighter. It was just as shiny and flawless as Delaney’s hip flask. “So you and Del Vecchio were Finch’s accomplices, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Finch was in on the deal from the start, but when it started getting bigger and more steel was being shipped in and out of the yard and in less and less time, he knew he couldn’t handle it on his own, so he offered Del Vecchio and me a part of his take.”
“Delaney,” Rosie sighed. “I thought you were different. I thought ...”
“Hey, if it was your mother who was up to her eyeballs in medical bills, you’d have done the same thing,” he argued. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. The problem is Finch was getting too much attention. Between the booze, the women, and flashing fifty-dollar bills around like it was chump change, it was only a matter of time until he ended up in jail or spilled the beans.”
She could see the shipyard up ahead. “But the government must have known what to expect when they turned the waterfront over to the mob. Surely—”
“It’s not the government they were worried about. It was the people. It’s one thing to suspect that the Mob is operating in your neighborhood. It’s another thing to know they are.” He shook his head. “No, if Finch had talked about what we were doing here—even the smallest slip—it would have been all over.”
“So you killed Finch,” she presumed.
“No, I told you I didn’t kill him. That’s the truth.”
“Then who did?”
“Del Vecchio. He knew Finch got his payoff down by the pier each week. So he waited for him there and ... let him have it.”
“Del Vecchio,” she repeated quietly. “And I’m sure he bashed him on the head because of what I had done earlier in the day.”
“He may have,” Delaney confessed.
“Good God.”
“Hey, that doesn’t make him a bad guy, Rosie. It doesn’t because he isn’t. He’s not like that. He’s a good guy. A family man,” Delaney insisted. “He was just following orders. When Frank Costello’s men tell you to do something, you don’t argue.”
“Is that how he got his promotion?”
“Part of it. Costello’s gang wanted to start putting inside men in all the key spots. Because Del Vecchio bumped off Finch, I guess they figured he should get his job.�
�
They had arrived at the Pushey Gate only to find the gate forced open and no guard on duty.
“Looks like we have company.” Grabbing Rosie by the arm, Delaney raised his gun and entered the yard in search of Del Vecchio.
Dragging Rosie behind him, he peered through the windows of every building in the complex as he made his way to the warehouse. As expected, he found nothing along the way and finally entered the warehouse, only to see Riordan standing over Del Vecchio’s body.
Riordan, gun still drawn, aimed it at Delaney. Delaney, meanwhile, grabbed for Rosie in an attempt to shield himself with her. It was enough to give Riordan pause.
Rosie, however, would have none of it. Recalling a technique her Dad once showed her, she took advantage of her position and gave him a hard kick to the side of the shin, just below the kneecap.
The move worked. Delaney lost his footing and crumpled to the ground, but not before getting a shot off at Riordan. Rosie watched in horror as the lieutenant fell to the ground.
“Riordan!” she screamed. But there was no time to turn back and check on him. She had to get away. She had to get help.
As the skies opened and lightning touched down over Gowanus Bay, Rosie ran out the warehouse door and toward the familiar haven of nearby Pier Number One. Once there, however, she knew the only place she could go was up.
Damning the risk of electrocution, she took hold of a bottom rung and started to climb. Raindrops crashed off the scaffold, soaking Rosie through to her skin and making it difficult to keep her hands and feet from slipping off the metal bars, making the ascent a slow one.
Yet upward she continued.
As she neared the third level of the skeletal structure, a shout came from the yard below. Delaney had caught up. “Rosie! Rosie, get down!”
Undeterred, she continued to climb.
“Rosie, please come down. I don’t want to hurt you!”
“You don’t? Is that why you marched me here with a gun in my back? Is that why you dragged me out of an alley?”
“I had to, Rosie. You gave me no choice. But I don’t want to hurt you. Really.”
“Oh, and I suppose that’s why you followed me in the first place. Because you didn’t want to hurt me?”
Delaney began to climb after her, the gun still in his right hand. “I wasn’t supposed to follow you. It was going to be one of Costello’s men, but I asked for the job. I asked for it to make sure you were safe. And when”—his hand slipped, but he recovered his balance—“And when Hansen was attacked, I made sure that happened after you had left the bar. I ... I didn’t want you to get hurt. I wanted to protect you because I—because I love you.”
Breathless from her climb, but close to the planking, Rosie screamed, “Love? Is that why you were willing to let me go to jail?”
“I didn’t want to ... I didn’t,” Delaney sounded as though he was close to tears.
Rosie stepped onto the wooden planking. As she did so a shot rang out and she felt a burning sensation in her right hip that caused her to drop to her knees. “Oh!” she gasped.
She endeavored to get back onto her feet, but it was too late. Delaney was already at the other end of the platform, his gun pointed directly at her. “I do love you, Rosie. But even love isn’t enough to protect me from Costello’s men.”
As Rosie lay upon the wooden planks of the platform, her hand reached behind her torso into the darkness and fell upon something cold, hard, and metallic.
Delaney cocked the gun and pointed it at Rosie’s heart. “I can’t let them kill me, Rosie. I’m sorry.”
She tried on a sympathetic look, all the while grasping the object behind her. “I guess that’s it, then. I have nowhere else to run, do I? I just have one last request.”
“What is it?”
“Well, I was raised Catholic, like you were. Remember the days at St. Cecelia’s?”
“I do. I knew I loved you even then.”
“And I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t notice.” The words brought a rush of bile to her mouth. “Seeing as there’s no priest here to administer Last Rites, could you at least join me in a prayer?”
Delaney shook his head gravely. “Don’t make me do that, Rosie. This is tough enough.”
“Please?” she begged. “I don’t want to go without seeking some sort of absolution.”
Delaney nodded and hung his head as Rosie began reciting the Hail Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God—”
With that final invocation, Rosie grabbed the pneumatic rivet gun Kilbride had left outdoors, clutched it tightly in both hands like a battering ram, and lunged toward Delaney. Pushing hard on the trigger, she sent the tip of the gun into Delaney’s chest with several blasts of air.
Delaney, crying out in agony, fell backward off the platform, causing a relieved, but exhausted, Rosie to plop onto the planks and catch her breath.
He’s gone. He’s finally gone. She wiped the rain from her face and began to stand up so as to start her descent down the scaffold.
Just then, she felt a hand grab her right ankle, prompting her to scream.
Hanging from the platform with one hand and holding onto Rosie with the other, Delaney was either attempting to climb back up or to pull her down with him.
Screaming the entire time, she flopped onto her stomach and frantically clawed at the planks, the nearby hull, anything that would keep her from sliding off the platform.
As she felt herself being pulled closer to the edge of the platform, closer to falling to the yard below, a shot rang out. Rosie, expecting to feel another burning pain, closed her eyes and braced for the worst.
However, it wasn’t a burning sensation that she felt but the sensation of Delaney’s fingers loosing their grip on her ankle. Within seconds, they disappeared altogether. She opened her eyes in confusion.
Illuminated by a nearby streak of lightning, Lieutenant Riordan stood at the opposite end of the platform. Bruised, bloody, his left arm dangling limply at his side, he dropped the gun from his right hand and collapsed beside Rosie.
“Riordan!” she exclaimed. Thankfully he was still conscious. “I thought ... I thought Delaney ...”
“He did.” He smiled. “I don’t look like this for nothing.”
“Where did he get you?”
“Shoulder. Left shoulder. You know, that’s a helluva climb you make every day.”
Half-crying, half-laughing, she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, but Monday’s climb will seem a lot easier than this one.”
“I heard shots. Are you okay? Did he get you?”
“I thought he got me, but ...” She reached down to her right hip, only to have her fingers meet, not blood, but metal. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out Delaney’s hip flask, which now bore a dent the size of a bullet hole.
Rosie stared at the object in disbelief and repeated the words Delaney had spoken upon giving it to her: “In case you need it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sunday morning materialized from the rain—sunny, clear, but seasonably cooler. After filing a report at police headquarters and having her cuts, scrapes, and abrasions tended to at the hospital, Rosie returned home, collapsed upon her sofa, and slept the sleep of a free woman.
She awoke six hours later, showered, donned a blue plaid dress with a white collar, and set off on the IRT to Brooklyn. Seeing the station in broad daylight fought off the chill she experienced as she stepped onto the platform, but she would not be deterred from her quest.
After a brief stop in Greenpoint, she then traveled to the third floor of Kings County Hospital, where Jack Riordan, his arm in a cast that stretched from his shoulder to his wrist, sat in bed, reading the morning paper spread upon his lap.
“Did we make the front page?” Rosie asked as she peeked her head in the door.
“Nope. King George VI did.” He pulled a face.
“King George? D
id he take a bullet to save a woman from jail, too?”
“No, he gave the George Cross to Malta. But we’re on page three.”
“Well, better luck next time, I suppose,” she teased.
“I do hope you’re joking.”
“I am.” She smiled and handed Riordan a white waxed paper bag of crullers she had purchased prior to her visit. “These are for you. A thank-you for saving me from Delaney.”
“You didn’t need to do that. It’s my job. And from what I can remember, you were doing okay on your own. Well ... except maybe for when Delaney was trying to pull you off the scaffold,” Riordan teased as he opened the bag and sniffed its contents.
“Yeah, ‘except’ for that I was doing fine.” She laughed.
Riordan chuckled and took a bite of cruller. “Mmm ... these are good.”
“Yeah, I got them from the bakery my mother wants me to work at.”
“Oh, are you leaving the shipyard?”
Rosie shook her head. “No, after everything that’s happened it might come as a shock, but I’m actually starting to like it there.”
“Good. I’m sure the cause could use more women like you.”
Rosie blushed and cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, I’d ... um ... I’d better be going. I have a lot of packing to do.”
“Packing?” Riordan asked with a start. “I thought you were staying at the shipyard.”
“Oh, I am. But I’m moving to Brooklyn. Back to my mother’s place. Katie and Charlie will be living with us, too.”
“Brooklyn, huh? I’m glad.”
“Why? So I’m no longer stirring up trouble in Manhattan?” Rosie joked.
“No. Because I live in Brooklyn, too. Being in the same borough will make it easier to check up on you,” Riordan stated with a smile.
“Check up on me?” Rosie repeated as she felt the color rise in her cheeks.
Don't Die Under the Apple Tree Page 21