Floodgate

by Johnny Shaw

  A person doing a crossword puzzle had no good reason to fill in the last letter. Or even the last few. That person knew that he knew the correct answers. What did it prove? Who was it for? Why bother? Because it would be wrong not to.

  With plenty of sitting-around time in Juvenile Booking, Andy idiotically continued to work the Montoya case, digging deeper into the deputy commissioner’s connection. Ancillary schemes arose that sparked new threads. Strange names popped up. Police brass, politicians, bankers, known criminals, even clergy members.

  Then it went tits up. Way up. All the way up. As high as tits could go.

  Andy and six other cops were publicly arrested on charges of accepting bribes from a Japanese smuggling ring. Handcuffed at their desks and brought to holding cells one floor down—after they were taken outside to be photographed by the press and then brought back inside. The fact that the allegations were true made it less suspicious, but Andy knew it was retribution. He hadn’t accepted money in five years, and even then it hadn’t been more than a few hundred to look the other way when the restaurants smuggled in forbidden, nonnative fish. Payments from the Japanese and Chinese were historical, a tradition. Cops had been receiving the same payments for decades. There had never been one report on the matter, let alone an arrest, in the history of the city.

  Those kinds of kickbacks were a part of police culture, an open secret. Even the good cops—which Andy considered himself to be—took money. In the case of the Japanese, it would have been an insult not to accept it. And how else were those old grandmothers going to enjoy their shark fin soup and moray eel mignon, or whatever they ate?

  The kicker was what followed. After months of lawyer wrangling and pre-trial motions, Andy was released, all charges dropped. Even his union rep and lawyer were surprised. The decision came from the deputy commissioner. Only Andy’s charges were dropped. The other six officers he had been arrested with were charged, convicted, and eventually put away, some for years. There had been no evidence against them that they didn’t have on Andy. Yet they let him walk.

  To every cop, it looked as if Andy had ratted out his brothers. He was the most hated man in the department when he went back to work that Monday.

  He stuck it out. Kept his head down. Did the work. Within an organization that tight, it grew impossible. Between the threats, the silent treatment, and the actual punches thrown, it couldn’t sustain. He could only find so many dead rats in his locker before he got the hint. (Thirteen, that was how many dead rats.) He struck a deal and took early retirement on a thirty percent pension. Left the only family, besides Champ, that he ever really loved. Dysfunctional as it was, it hurt.

  He had been pushed out because he had gotten close to something big. Something to do with Montoya, the deputy commissioner and the other higher-ups, and a money-laundering operation. To make things more suspicious, Chucho Montoya died before his trial in a suspect fire at one of his pawnshops, all but ending that thread. Officially, the case was closed. And forgotten. At least by the police.

  But give a man an enemy and you give him purpose. Once abandoned, a reformer was born. Andy didn’t need to be in the police to investigate crime. All he needed was a target.

  Andy’s railroading strengthened his resolve. Before his arrest, he had only wanted to solve the puzzle. Now he wanted revenge. A punch-a-clock nine-to-five quickly turned into a vendetta. Take away an already-prone-to-obsession guy’s reason for being and he’ll find another one. He’ll cover his apartment walls with photos and scraps of paper. He’ll convert his living space into an active investigation.

  The linchpin in the whole thing was Aloysius Gray. He ran the department. He was the one who had taken him off the case, spearheaded the bribery investigation, and eventually negotiated the deal that led to Andy’s retirement. His hand was in everything. Andy would get that son of a bitch. One way or the other.

  Kate Girard and the scary building were interesting, and he was going to pursue them, but Gray would always be his main target. Stalled for now, but Gray would screw up eventually.

  Andy looked at his stolen-and-returned watch. Too late to go back to the senior living facility and talk to Champ about Kate Girard. Still early enough to start some trouble. He wondered how Gray would react to seeing him. At the least, it would remind the old man that cop or no cop, Andy Destra never quit.

  CHAPTER 5

  The police in Auction City have a reputation. We call twenty-dollar bills Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Cards. I got stopped for jaywalking one time. Usually a ticket, but this was one of the good cops. He let me off with an uppercut and his baton halfway up my toches. I saw a cop help a little old lady across the street. She was at gunpoint. Ninety years old. Four seconds flat.

  —From Johnny Schnitzel’s live comedy album Meshuga Daddy (1974)

  There was no way for Andy to be inconspicuous at Muldoon’s. The mainstay downtown bar got no walk-in traffic, only regulars. All cops or retired cops. Andy fit the criteria, but he was persona non grata among local law enforcement. He was walking straight into the pig’s den. The dozen handbills he posted outside wouldn’t help his case.

  Sometimes the best camouflage was standing out in the open. That’s what Andy told himself as he entered. It sounded good, but Andy knew it was bull. The best camouflage was when you blended in, when you were out of sight. Because that’s what the word camouflage meant.

  Andy got surly looks and nonaccidental shoulder bumps on his way to the bar. Even more cold stares and muttered swearing. “Traitor.” “Judas.” “Ratfuck.” Considering that these epithets came from members of the most corrupt police department in the nation, their sanctimony seemed laughable. It was difficult to take insults seriously in a room full of hypocrites, liars, thugs, and bullies.

  Andy had once considered these men his family. Now they were the kind of family that you dreaded seeing on holidays because Uncle Morris always got a little too drunk, insisted on teaching you some wrestling moves, and proceeded to get handsy around your thigh area.

  He spotted Deputy Commissioner Gray in the corner with his right- and left-hand men: Colonel Hank Robinson of the Criminal Investigation Division and Captain Randall Ashley of the less than glamorous, but undeniably powerful, Fiscal Division. You could set your watch to their schedules. Every night after a long day of making the city safe, a series of backslaps and handshakes, then a tray of old-fashioneds to show that they were regular Joes. Gray reminded the men of his roots and in the process got a de facto debriefing.

  Gray might have been deputy commissioner, but everyone knew that Commissioner Jenkins was a figurehead. The three men at that table controlled the department and subsequently much of the political machine in Auction City. In their early sixties, Gray, Robinson, and Ashley went all the way back to the Academy. A lot of history, even more secrets. They knew where the bodies were buried and who had hosed off the shovel.

  Current scuttlebutt suggested that discord had surfaced between the three men. While Colonel Robinson was a loyal second and heir apparent to DC Gray, Captain Ashley no longer supported the direction that Gray was taking the city’s police force. Some cops thought it was more than a policy disagreement. Some rift that went back decades but had only reared its head recently. Outranked, there was little that Ashley could do, but as the head of the Fiscal Division, he did control the purse strings.

  Mike Muldoon, the ex-cop bartender and grandson of the original Muldoon, ignored Andy. Andy was fine with the indifference. It beat getting clocked with the cricket bat behind the bar. He hadn’t come there to drink anyway. He found an empty stool and waited for Gray to spot him. See if he could shake the old man. Or whatever Andy’s not-quite-a-plan was.

  Of all the things that could have happened next, Kate Girard walking through the front door wouldn’t have been on Andy’s list. The men in the bar noticed, as well.

  While the ACPD had a few women on the force, none of them wanted to socialize with the assholes they dealt with on their regular shifts. Be
sides the occasional badge bunny, that made Muldoon’s a nightly sword fight. Any lady in the dump warranted attention. When you carried yourself like Kate Girard, you got more than that.

  Walking with purpose and disdain, Kate Girard strutted though the corridor that the men created for her. Eyes stared. Jaws dropped. Mustaches got combed. Someone whistled. She spotted Andy, smirked a little, and walked toward him. She wore the same perfume as she had earlier in the day. It smelled like the flower shop on Fourteenth Street.

  Muldoon wiped the bar in front of her. “Been a while, Girard. Can I get you?”

  “You know how to make a martini, Muldoon?”

  “I’m a bartender, ain’t I?” Ever the charmer, and not really answering the question.

  “Make it scotch and soda. And whatever Destra is having.”

  “He ain’t having nothing,” Muldoon said. “He was loitering. Now he’s trespassing. On his way out.”

  “Does he know that?” She turned to Andy. “Were you leaving?”

  “Not now I ain’t,” Andy said.

  Muldoon exhaled loudly and walked to the other end of the bar, loudly banging bottles as he made Kate’s drink.

  “Twice in one day,” Kate Girard said. “Do you believe in coincidences?”

  “No,” Andy said. “Absolutely not. You know Champ. Muldoon knows you. How come we haven’t met until today?”

  “I like to remain mysterious.”

  “What do you know about a building on Holt Avenue?”

  “You’d have to be more specific. That’s a long street.”

  “It’s 6243. A friend of yours owns it. Someone probably not named John Dole.”

  She gave Andy a wide smile. Not quite fake but with little sincerity. “You need to stop. You’re charging in blind and have no idea what’s behind that door.”

  “Fill me in,” Andy said. “You and Champ. What’s the deal there?”

  “Ask her.”

  “She won’t tell me.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Kate Girard said. “You need to back off Gray. That wanted poster crap. Does nothing but antagonize a dangerous man.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you come to drink in this dump all the time.”

  “From the guy not drinking in a bar that he’s not welcome in.” And on that, she waved at the booth where Deputy Commissioner Gray and his cronies sat. They didn’t wave back. The three men stared at Andy. He mimed lifting a glass in toast.

  “You’re here to see Gray?” he asked.

  Muldoon set down Kate Girard’s drink. She picked it up, took a sip, and left a ten on the bar. She walked to the booth with every eye on her backside. Men are pigs, but in their defense it was a nice backside. He really hoped that Kate Girard wasn’t his mother.

  “I still have questions,” Andy called after her, but he was ignored.

  Kate Girard talked to Gray and his men for less than five minutes. At first Gray had a few angry words for Ms. Girard. But she wasn’t having any. She countered. Andy wished he could have heard what she said. Gray took it, seething. He had never seen anyone talk to the DC that way. And in public. On his turf. Even more startling, he had never seen anything that resembled fear in Gray’s demeanor until that moment. Only for a second, but it was there.

  When the brief meeting adjourned, Kate Girard walked to the back door. As she reached for the knob, she turned to Andy for a moment. Then she was gone.

  Andy rose to follow, but a monstrous hand pushed him back onto the stool.

  Three large Irishmen stood in front of him. He knew them all too well. More Thorntons. With those ginger rhinos in his path, he could scratch his plans of catching up to Kate Girard. Andy’s revised plan B consisted entirely of getting out of Muldoon’s alive.

  “It’s going to be like that?” Andy asked the Thornton in the middle. He glanced toward the back booth. Deputy Commissioner Gray raised his glass in a toast, giving Andy as much smile as his evil allowed.

  “It’s going to be like that,” the Thornton answered. The Thornton that Andy hit first.

  Cops liked to fight. The good ones and the rotten ones. Don’t let them tell you different. Among the primary reasons men joined the force, a proclivity for violence trumped family tradition, good benefits, and sweet uniforms. You didn’t hear about cops in it for the paperwork. They might frame it as “I like the action” or “I want to catch bad guys,” but that was code for socially acceptable head stomping.

  While Andy had joined the force in a weak act of defiance of a man he didn’t know, government-sanctioned violence proved compelling. When they first let him walk the streets with a loaded gun and a baton, he had wood most of the day. He wasn’t proud of it, but he spent that first shift looking for a reason to bludgeon someone. It ended up being a purse snatcher, and it was as satisfying as he thought it would be. Dangerously addictive, too. A product of the power. His skill set might have been more suited to desk jockey, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some thug in him. It probably came from his father’s side.

  As Andy hadn’t seen any action in a while, a fight wasn’t unwelcome. Who better than the Thorntons? They had beaten so many innocent suspects in their tenure, pressured so many store owners for their take, and terrorized so many citizens who happened to cross their path that Andy was sure that karmically they had a righteous thrashing coming.

  If he didn’t get knocked unconscious before getting a second punch in.

  Fighting one against three, a congested space was preferable. While an open area gave avenues for escape, a crowded bar offered chaos. Alcohol plus violent men plus any excuse to punch a face equaled just-add-water bar brawl. It took two seconds for the proverbial breaking loose of all hell.

  With the weight of the sap gloves assisting him, Andy’s hook cracked the middle Thornton’s jaw, sending him reeling into the table behind him. Spilled drinks, a ruined shirt, and before you could say, “Hold my beer,” three mustaches joined the scuffle. They weren’t on Andy’s side. Or the Thorntons’ side. They were their own side. A war fought on three fronts.

  One of the other Thorntons slammed Andy’s head against the bar and gave him a couple shots to the body. Since his ribs were mostly titanium plating from his last fracture, it would take more than that to bust them again. The upside of a life of violence revealed itself in strange ways.

  Shaking the blur, he got hit again. He didn’t know by whom. Andy ducked in time to avoid Muldoon getting in on the action with his cricket bat. The poor bastard sitting next to him got the brunt of that wood. The guy never knew what hit him.

  From there it was punching, taking punches, a lot of shoving, grabbing lapels, hitting the ground, scrambling, kicking shins, crawling, inadequately hiding, hitting some more. Someone stepped on his hand. Someone bit his calf. Ground glass tore his pants and cut his knees. A chair flew past his head. If the bar had a piano player, he would have upped the tempo and pounded those keys. Among the grunting and slapping, Andy heard as much laughing. Wednesday night was gladiator night, drinks all over the house. The emergency room was going to be filled with stitches and stories.

  Bruised but not beaten, Andy slipped out the front door. The brawl continued. The sound of glass breaking, wood splintering, and dull thumping echoed down the cold, empty street. Someone with a sense of humor had put “Beat It” on the jukebox.

  He’d glanced back at DC Gray on his way outside. Not afraid to get his hands dirty, the most powerful member of the Auction City PD was making quick work of some rookie who was either too afraid or too confused to hit back. Gray’s eyes met Andy’s as the man pummeled the poor subordinate. The death stare made Andy consider heeding Kate Girard’s warning.

  Holding a handful of dirty snow to his jaw, Andy tried to hail a cab. In his ripped, bloody clothes and disheveled state, he got no takers. All the better, as he didn’t have any money. The walk in the cold air woke him and helped him think.

  Andy stro
lled past downtown police headquarters, the First Precinct. It was a beautiful old edifice, but felt like a lie. He took a piss on the side of the building.

  Most of the businesses on Benchley Boulevard operated past midnight. Not just the bars and restaurants. If you needed typewriter ribbon or cat food, stores were open to accommodate every late-night urge. Andy bought an ice cream cone from an Italian man whose name he knew but couldn’t remember.

  Then it hit him. He stopped abruptly, chucked his unfinished cone in the trash, and rushed down the street until he found what he was looking for.

  He walked into the flower shop, past the small Asian man. Andy found the chrysanthemums and stuck his face into the bunches, taking a big whiff. They smelled just like Kate Girard’s perfume.

  The red chrysanthemums. The Holt address. Gray. And Kate Girard.

  What the hell was going on?

  1929

  LONG PAST DAYS

  Lost in Redling Park. Separated from Sal. Staying to the deepest trees, out of sight. Grasping the bloody ice pick, the cleaver, white-knuckle tight. Hands shaking. Body shivering. Nowhere to go. Every path leading to a new hell.

  Screams. Dull thuds. Sharp cracks. Gunfire. An explosion in the distance. Sounded like thunder, definitely not. The trapped smoke from the burning trees like tule fog. Burning my eyes. Forced to mute my coughs. Crouching, looking for air. Not finding it.

  Ducking behind a trunk at the sound of rustling leaves. Muted voices. Some scared. Some angry. Some laughing.

  A group of Negroes. Just boys. None older than me. Poor. Ill-fitting clothes. No shoes. Unarmed. Running, arms flailing like they were swimming. Away from sharks.

  Blue sharks. Four coppers. Tommy guns at their waists. One yee-hawed. Another spat. They opened fire.

  The teenagers cut down, backs arching. Dancing from the shots that followed. Hands stupidly reaching for the wounds. Spilling forward. Red mist mixed in the gray smoke. A wounded boy crawled through the brush. Insides trailing behind him. Crying. Nowhere to go. The cops stood over the boys. Laughed and fired their weapons until their magazines were empty.