Speak of the Devil

by Richard Hawke

  I had a lousy shot. I’d have to bring my shooting arm out from under the cart, and he’d have a free shot at me. Besides, I wanted to avoid firing my gun if at all possible. Cox would have a trickier time putting his self-defense story over on his superiors if there was no evidence that I’d fired at him.

  “Malone!”

  I didn’t respond. I crawled slowly backward from under the cart and squatted on my haunches behind it. The toy store was the last shop in the corridor. Rising to a crouch, I grabbed hold of the cart’s wooden handles, tilted it off its centering post and gave it a shove. It resisted at first, then moved. Keeping the cart between myself and Cox, I started rolling it forward, breaking into a slow run. As I neared the toy store, Cox fired again. I torqued the handles so that the cart began to tip. With a deep grunt, I shoved the cart with all my strength toward the shattered window and followed behind it, leaping at the last second through the window and rolling into a ball. Toys crashed down all around me in a clatter of plastic and metal. A toy drum set’s cymbals gave a tinny crash. I rolled to a stop. There was a five-inch gash in the sleeve of my jacket. I sensed a warmth beneath it. I scooted immediately up against the wall, flat on the floor, and peered out over the pile of toys.

  The tipped-over cart partially blocked my view-and kept me partially hidden-but I could see Cox clearly, up at the top of the stairs. He was still crouched behind the railing. I brought my.38 up to my nose, squinting along the barrel. I had a perfect shot.

  Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

  He pitched sideways. Simultaneously, I heard the shots. Cox started to rise to his knees, then spun around violently as a second volley of shots was fired. His gun dropped and his arm flailed for the railing, just missing it. His mouth dropped open and he toppled forward, belly flopping onto the top three steps. He didn’t move. That was it. He looked as if he were glued to the spot.

  I raced out of the toy store. From the floor above me, people were screaming. I heard another burst of automatic gunfire as I reached the stairs. I paused. Running up the stairs would be suicide. Blood was dripping down onto the railing next to me. I craned my neck and saw Leonard Cox’s body. The entire building began to roar. It was the sound of helicopters. The sound was drowning out everything except the screaming. I couldn’t remain where I was.

  Move!

  I spotted an elevator partway back down the corridor and I ran to it and slammed the button. The helicopter roar gained volume and, with it, ferocity. The elevator door slid open and I got in. I hit 3. As the door slid closed I muttered a soft prayer.

  39

  ANGEL RAMOS WAS STANDING TWENTY FEET AWAY WHEN THE ELEVATOR door opened. My gun was already up and aiming. My knuckles were white on the handle. Just as the elevator bumped to a halt, I’d noted the blood oozing from the gash in my coat sleeve. The warmth had given way to a hot searing pain. I realized what had happened. A large piece of the toy store’s plate-glass window had sliced open my shooting arm when I dove through the window. A nasty thought tore through my brain as Ramos appeared before me: What if my trigger finger doesn’t respond?

  Ramos was cradling an Uzi rifle. He was in jeans and a white oversize Sean John sweatshirt. A black scarf covered his head. A black knapsack was on the floor between his feet.

  He turned. Whether he actually saw me or not, I’ll never know. Abruptly his body began to jerk as if he were having an epileptic seizure. The rifle clattered to the ground. Ramos’s sweatshirt had a fit of its own, rippling in a breeze of gunfire. The splotches of red appeared even before the man had crumpled to the ground. It was over in seconds. His last movement-and he was probably already dead at this point-was his left leg. It kicked. His foot hit the Uzi, and the rifle skidded about ten feet along the floor.

  The elevator door started to close, and I reached out with my gun hand and stopped it. A loud, metallic voice sounded. “Lay down your weapon!”

  I did. I leaned down and skidded my accomplice across the floor. About ten feet. Just like Angel’s. I stepped out of the elevator with my hands raised.

  A police helicopter was floating in the air just off the end of the pavilion. The pilot was jockeying his stick to keep the craft in place. The sharpshooter was still aiming his rifle into the pavilion. The man holding the bullhorn was leaning out the side window of the bubble.

  I turned to look in the other direction. Several dozen people-Angel’s hostages-were moving forward as one. They all seemed to have forgotten how to walk normally.

  40

  THE PIER 17 PAVILION WAS FLOODED WITH POLICE. THE HOSTAGES were herded together and taken out as a group. Stretchers were brought in to remove the bodies of Cox, Angel Ramos and the food-court worker Ramos had shot, a young guy named Brian Vitrano. The top floor of the pavilion was cleared as quickly as possible so that the police bomb squad could come in and do their thing.

  I was escorted out of the building and across the pier’s open area by a pair of humorless policemen. One of them was Patrick Noon. “Evening, Noon,” I’d said to him when he took hold of my good arm. He’d given me nothing back. Zero. Nada.

  The setting sun on the far side of the island hit the buildings along the Brooklyn waterfront and fired up a thousand windows with hot, dazzling gold.

  I was taken to a waiting ambulance, where my coat was peeled off and my arm was triaged. While I was being worked on, I caught the rumor that one of the three people who’d been taken off to NYU Downtown Hospital was still alive. I knew without question that it wasn’t Ramos. If there was a God who had a moment to spare for New York, I thought, it would be Brian Vitrano. He was our true hero du jour.

  The EMS workers wrapped my arm in gauze and told me they would take me to the hospital to get some fresh blood.

  Remy Sanchez was making his way over to me. He wasn’t happy. “You could have gotten all those people in there killed. I could have your license pulled for a stunt like that. What the hell happened in there?”

  “Cox tried to take me out.”

  “He tried to kill you?”

  “I told you, Sanchez. He’s a baddie.” I corrected myself. “He was a baddie.”

  Sanchez shook his head. “Is. He’s still alive.”

  My heart sank. And my head went light. I staggered, and an EMS guy grabbed hold of me. “He’s lost blood,” he said to Sanchez. “We’re going to take him in.”

  “Wait,” I said. I took a few calculated breaths, and the dizziness passed. I turned to Sanchez. “Cox was in it up to his teeth. He was in it with Ramos. They were a team, I’m convinced. There’s your baddest apple, Captain. If I were you, I’d contact the doctors at the hospital and tell them to leave Cox in the hallway for a few hours. Those things do happen, you know.”

  Sanchez shook his head. “Something stank from the start,” he said. “A bad cop’ll cast a white shadow every time.”

  A bright light hit me. There was a rumbling in the crowd, and suddenly Kelly Cole was standing in front of me, holding a microphone and pressing a hand to her ear to keep an earplug from falling out. She flashed me a quick look of recognition, then barked urgently into the microphone. “Jim, I’m here with the man who was inside the pavilion when the shooting rang out. Could you tell us what it was like in there?” She thrust the microphone into my face.

  “I don’t remember a fucking thing,” I said.

  She snapped the microphone back and gave me a withering look. The sentiment was clear. Fuck you, Malone. The crowd parted behind her, and Mayor Leavitt strolled onto the scene. He acknowledged me with a nod, then tugged his tie tight as Cole wheeled around. She shoved the microphone forward and asked the mayor if he had any comment. Of course he did, but his words didn’t register with me in any meaningful way. Leavitt stood in the harsh glare of the minicam and mouthed whatever it was he had to mouth. To me it was a silent movie starring Mr. Charisma. Mr. Bachelor Mayor.

  I thought of Tommy Carroll’s rant against the mayor just the night before. It seemed several lifetimes ago. If there really was to be a battl
e between the two men, Carroll was lost. He was beaten. The man chattering away to the city of New York and beyond was too young, too smart, too smooth, too appealing. There are some people to whom nothing bad ever sticks. They can walk through a mountain of muck and emerge clean and rosy. Survival and success just seem to be their birthright.

  I heard Cole asking the mayor, “And where is Commissioner Carroll, Mr. Mayor? It looks like practically every cop in the city is here. Where’s the commissioner?”

  Leavitt addressed his answer directly to the camera. “Commissioner Carroll has been under a lot of strain lately. We all know it’s been a rough time for the police department. I’m sad to report as well that Tommy’s health hasn’t been all that good. He’s a proud man, and you’d never hear it from him. He always puts his job first.”

  “Then where is he?”

  The mayor paused. As he did, my cell phone rang. I snatched it from my pocket and flipped it open. “Malone. Hold on.”

  I lowered the phone just as Martin Leavitt found the soulful expression he’d been looking for. He aimed it first at Kelly Cole, then at the camera. “I have no idea where the hell the commissioner is. He should certainly be here. Frankly, I’m a little concerned.”

  I raised the phone to my ear. “Malone. What?”

  “Fritz?”

  It was Margo.

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  For a moment I thought the shakiness was in the connection. Then I realized it was in Margo’s voice. She was sobbing. “Oh God, Fritz. He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us both!”

  I crushed the phone in my hand. “What?”

  “He’s going to kill us. Daddy and me. Oh God. Fritz. Whatever you do-”

  The line went dead.

  So did my heart.

  Margo.

  I took off running. I shoved the mayor out of my way, along with one of his security goons. The first several seconds, I was simply running blindly. He’s going to kill us both! Then I focused. I sprinted through a gap between two police barricades and spotted Patrick Noon making his way over to a patrol car. I veered in his direction. Without thinking, I pulled my gun from my holster. Noon had no time to react.

  “Get in!” I prodded the gun against his ribs. “Get in. There’s a murder under way in Queens. Let’s go!”

  He paused.

  “Get in!” He got the point. I ran around to the passenger side as he slid in behind the wheel. “Sirens,” I barked, “The lights. Go, go, go!”

  The officer frowned. He started up the car and put it in gear. “If this is bullshit, you’re in deep.”

  “If you don’t drive, you’re in deep.”

  He drove. Because of the mess at the pier, we couldn’t get onto the FDR until north of Chinatown. While Noon showed some good moves behind the wheel, I tried calling Margo. No answer. Same thing with Charlie’s number. I threw my phone onto the floor of the car. I’d sent her out there. How could I have been so perfectly stupid? I should have gone directly to Margo’s after leaving her father’s and fetched Donna Bia’s phone myself. What was I thinking, involving her like that?

  I looked out the window at the gray East River. Drown me. If anything happens to Margo or to Charlie, just drown me. Tie a rope around my leg and attach it to a car and send it off the Queensboro Bridge. I’d sent her there.

  I turned to Noon. “Drive!”

  Lights flashing and siren screaming at the top of its lungs, we raced over the bridge, and I directed Noon to Charlie’s neighborhood. The officer looked over at me. “Plan?” He was cool, calm and collected. Good man. I took my cue.

  “Plan. Okay.” My right arm was throbbing. “Cut the sirens,” I said. “Pull over. Here.”

  Noon brought the patrol car deftly to the curb in front of a florist. Charlie’s street was two blocks away. I thought a moment, then I directed Noon to the intersection at the end of the block. The top of Charlie’s house was visible from where we stopped. I took another twenty seconds to think.

  “Okay. Here’s how we do it.”

  I got out of the car and made my way down the alley that ran behind Charlie’s house. I passed the house and went into the backyard of his next-door neighbors, Powell and Louise Harrison. Louise appeared at the back door. I put my finger to my lips, and she got the message.

  The Harrisons are a retired couple. They have five grandchildren, a fact that Margo’s mother likes to recycle to her daughter whenever I’m within earshot. Some years back, Powell and his son, Scott, built a slapdash tree house in the only tree in the Harrisons’ backyard that could sustain one. Scott pounded a half-dozen two-by-fours into the tree trunk to serve as a ladder. There was a brief problem a few years ago with local teenagers finding their way up into the tree house late at night to indulge in any of several sports that teenagers generally indulge in. Charlie had solved the problem with several late-night vigils and a few revolver shots into the air.

  I scurried up the tree, passed through the plywood tree house and shimmied out onto the thick branch that Charlie has been complaining to Powell about for twenty-three years. Charlie was convinced that with just the right kind of storm, the branch would break off and either land on his roof or go right through it. So far it hadn’t. From the branch, I lowered myself soundlessly onto Charlie’s roof. The pain in my injured arm was like fire. Blood had begun to ooze through the gauze.

  I tried the windows first, suspecting they’d be locked. I was right. On to Plan B. I moved around to the far side of the house. I could see Noon’s patrol car parked at the end of the block. I waved my arm three times in the air. Noon flashed his lights. A second later, his roof lights came on. I checked my watch, then made my way to the window to Margo’s old room. I looked at my watch and counted down the final seconds. Four, three, two, one… I heard the not so distant squeal of tires.

  I jabbed at the glass with my elbow just as Noon’s siren and horn sounded full blast. He must have slipped the car into neutral, since the engine revved with a scream. By comparison, the tinkle of breaking glass was tiny. I hoped it was tiny enough. I’d know soon enough.

  I unlocked the lock on Margo’s window and let myself inside. I could hear voices from downstairs. I’d told Noon to wait in his car for two minutes before coming in, but that by all means he was to ignore that directive if he heard shooting. I took off my shoes and set them on the bed. I pulled my gun and made my way as catlike as I could through Margo’s room and into the hallway. The voices from downstairs had stopped. I checked my watch. Thirty seconds, give or take. Our timing, I figured, would be approximate at best. I went down the short hallway to the top of the steps. I could see a corner of the living room, just enough to see the television set and Margo’s mother’s aquarium. The burbling of the filter was the only sound in the house.

  Noon pounded on the door. By my calculations, he was early.

  “Police! Open the door!”

  I took a five count, then started down the steps.

  Charlie was seated in his wheelchair on the far side of the room, facing the stairs. Next to him sat Margo. They were both looking up at me as I descended the top three stairs. There was a third person in the room as well.

  Sitting next to Margo.

  Holding a gun to her head.

  My heart stopped. It’s the devil you know.

  Tommy Carroll got off his shot before I did. We both missed. I dropped and rolled down the steps. The front door flew open and Patrick Noon rushed into the house. Carroll swung his gun and fired another shot as Margo let out a scream. The tall officer dropped to the floor. Carroll swung his gun right back to Margo’s head as I scrambled up onto all fours. He grabbed hold of her hair. I had time to do absolutely nothing. Zip.

  “Drop the gun, Fritz,” Carroll said. “It’s a three count, then she’s gone. I’m sorry. One-”

  I skidded the gun along the floor. Noon had doubled over into fetal position and was groaning softly.

  “Tommy,” I said, “we’ve got to call an ambulance.”<
br />
  “Shut up.”

  “Tommy, he’s a cop.”

  “I said shut up.”

  I got up slowly from the floor. I saw now that the television set was on. Breaking-news coverage of the events at Pier 17. The volume was off. Carroll tilted his chin in the direction of the TV. He was perspiring profusely. For that matter, so was I.

  “Charlie here was watching the tube when I arrived. I saw your little act there with blondie. Nice language, Fritz.”

  I took a step forward and Carroll waved his gun at me. “Stop right there.” He returned the gun to Margo’s head. She hadn’t said a word. Her hair had fallen into her face and she was giving me one of her darkest looks. It came to me as if it were at the far end of a long tunnel.

  “Let her go,” I said evenly. “Let them both go. For Christ’s sake, get an ambulance out here. If you want to take me off somewhere and point your gun at me, let’s do it. Leave them out of it. They have nothing to do with any of this.”

  “That’s exactly what I came out here to find out,” Carroll said. He refixed his grip on Margo’s hair, pulling her head back.

  My breath was short. “Let her go, Tommy. Or I swear-”

  Carroll was having trouble with his own breath. “Or you swear what? Goddammit, I asked you to do one… simple thing. Just one. Locate Ramos. I should have known better. I know how you run everything by your old partner. I thought I’d come out here and see what kind of progress report old Charlie could give me. I can’t say he was… being too cooperative.” He tugged again on Margo’s hair. “Then this one came dropping by. And look what she had with her.”

  I followed his eyes. I noticed that Donna Bia’s cell phone was sitting on the coffee table, next to a stack of magazines. Over by the door, Patrick Noon attempted to rise up onto an elbow. He managed to make it halfway up, then collapsed again.