Broken Sky

by Saurav Dutt

  Durning glared at Agent Pearce from head to foot, admiring the razor sharp cut of his clothes as his eyes finally settled on the envelope he had tucked under his left arm pit. “Coincidences?” he blurted “what we’ve got here is great detective work..I recognised this woman, or rather my wife did, and we spent all night checking our files, making calls, tracing ID’s, counter referencing cases before we realised who she might be”

  “And who might she be Captain?” Agent Pearce asked as he placed the envelope onto the table, stuffing his hands into his pockets, tilting his head towards John who he noticed was now watching him carefully.

  “Gina Rossi of course..” Durning chuckled “wife of Dennis Rossi, wanted on at least seven counts of money laundering, drug and jewellery smuggling, handling stolen goods and fraud..you name it- and she happened to land into our laps”

  “Your wife” Pearce butted in “what does she have to do with it?”

  “Well” Durning explained “we were…well we just happened to..uh..be at my colleague’s…I mean John here…the detective’s home last night and..well the lady was there and my wife recognised her right off the bat..I couldn’t make her out straight away ‘cause of the wig and the make up and the obvious cosmetic surgery…but my wife did, I guess it’s a female thing y’know?”

  “Quite..” Agent Pearce frowned as he lifted up a crisp $50 note to the light, studying its inflections, creases and markings as he turned his attention to John “so you must be the detective who was dating her I believe?”

  “We weren’t dating” John shot back as he moved forward to inspect a twenty dollar note, immediately alarming Pearce who jabbed at the stacks of bills lying on the table. “This is federal property” he grimaced “don’t touch it..we have to examine all of this for DNA, see who else has come into contact with it…so you weren’t dating were you? Why was she at your apartment last night in that case?”

  “I’m sorry, Agent Pearce, is it?” John smiled “I wasn’t aware your mission here today was to bust my balls”

  “John” Durning frowned “don’t make things even more difficult than they are, you have no idea how embarrassing this looks for the department-you being there, with her of all people..it’s bad enough you find some junkie dame off the street, but of all people, her…”

  “Captain” Agent Pearce cut in as he stared at John “let the Detective finish. You’re right I’m not here to interview you, but the point is you were still in the presence of this woman and this property and that does beg the question, what exactly was the nature of your relationship?”

  “We didn’t have a goddamn relationship” John sighed “it was just one of those things, we just hooked up…I was attracted to her, maybe she was taking me for a ride or whatever-either way we did what we did. I liked the chasing, I liked the challenge…and she liked it more”

  “You didn’t find her behaviour suspicious in the least?” Agent Pearce enquired as he studied the Polaroid pictures “this woman from the street, this very attractive woman who doesn’t look like your average tramp, with these big suitcases and a bowler hat of all things with dry blood in it-you didn’t find any of this remotely strange?”

  “Are you married Agent Pearce?” John smiled as he glared back.

  “Yes I am” came the reluctant reply.

  “Well then maybe you’ve forgotten about the thrill of the chase, a little mystery, a little of the unknown…maybe that’s what I was after as a single man at my age…it’s not a crime is it? Or is having sex with complete strangers a federal offence these days?” John frowned.

  “So I take it you weren’t the least bit curious about this strange woman?” Pearce murmured as he studied John, his worn expression, the starched collars of his shirt, his bedraggled appearance “she doesn’t look like your average hobo does she now?”

  “Agent Pearce” Captain Durning interjected with a nervous cough “why exactly is the FBI concerned with this matter-we’ve run her prints before and we couldn’t find them.

  All we have is a make on her ID according to my wife and some pictures of Gina Rossi from almost ten years ago-what we’ve got here is counterfeit bills. If the FBI is down here, you must have something concrete to book this woman on if she really is Gina Rossi”

  “She’s not Gina Rossi..” Pearce replied as he shot a fierce look at Durning as he neatly arranged the stacks of bills within the contents of the suitcases “at least not anymore..”

  “What the hell does that mean?” John growled as he leant forward to glimpse a look at the contents of the manila envelope.

  “What do you remember about Gina Rossi, detective?” Agent Pearce smiled as he gently pushed the envelope away from John’s hand.

  “Well from what I know, from what CNN knows and most of New York..she’s Dennis Rossi’s moll” John quipped “ran numbers through New Jersey, helped out smuggling rings through American Airlines bringing in all sorts of hot shit from Miami and Vegas…other than that, expensive coats, expensive watches and jewellery and ran a few of his casinos. Word was she was as tough as nails as he was.”

  “Quite” Pearce nodded with a sheepish grin “except that about eight years ago, they fell out in a big way. He wanted to divorce her. Found out she was sleeping with Paul Gambuccini out of Philadelphia; apparently she got in with the Gambuccini’s and managed to fleece Rossi clean to the tune of $5 million bucks and then-”

  “-and then she dropped off the face of the planet” Durning interrupted “nobody heard about her, knew a thing about her, she coulda been dead for all everybody knew” he coughed, receiving a cold glance from Pearce who took a pause before continuing.

  “She turned state’s evidence to put Rossi behind bars. We granted her immunity; her accounts, her tip offs, her evidence ensured that son of a bitch is rotting in Riker’s for the rest of his life, otherwise another case against him would have died and been left buried like the countless others we brought against him…we put Gina Rossi in a witness protection programme in Stanford, Connecticut at that point to protect her, to let her vanish. Nobody knew, not her relatives, nobody on God’s green earth except her liaison with the FBI and a handful of agents. Then about a year ago, she fell completely off the grid. We couldn’t find her, couldn’t track her, the cell phone didn’t even connect anymore..so we went in and we found the house torched…the goombah she was living with at the time from the Gambuccini’s? He was found with eight bullets in his head and his face carved in with what we could only guess was a cleaver..we figured Rossi’s people went after her for some payback after they discovered where we moved her and she hightailed it out of there..the Gambuccini’s specialised in counterfeiting. That was her thing too. If she had one thing she could take with her if she had to cut and run it would be this money right here…”

  “This is bullshit” John shook his head as he stared at the suitcases “there is no way in hell that woman lying there is Gina Rossi..she doesn’t even look like her, think about it for a minute”

  “Last picture we have of her, she hadn’t yet dyed her hair peroxide blonde..and as for cosmetic surgery” Pearce sighed “she had the money and the connections and the anonymity we provided her, it would have been easy for her to change those basic parts of her appearance…I’ve just come from the hospital. My job is to find out who she really is. Somebody’s done a real number on her. Her skull is cracked and she has a number of minor fractures to her wrists and feet that she’s somehow been living with..and which explains the number of painkillers she has stuffed in her coat pockets, somebody obviously tried to hurt her real bad..probably kill her but didn’t finish the job..that’s the way I look at it. And if we don’t do our jobs properly right now, they just might find her here in NY and finish the job off..”

  “So we’re supposed to sit on this and protect a woman you think is Gina Rossi based on nothing more than a hunch?” Durning scowled.

  “Dennis Rossi is eligible for parole in a few weeks time” Agent Pearce remarked “if we managed to
track her down to Manhattan, then I have no doubt that he will too. It doesn’t matter if he’s behind bars, he’s like a goddamn octopus with its tentacles everywhere. Rossi is old school, payback is payback to him, he’ll pull any stunt to get even with her. Our job is to protect her no matter what…so I came here today to tell you to monitor this woman, see where she goes if she gets discharged..but you don’t arrest her, you don’t do a thing, you let us deal with it”

  Pearce stiffened his tie, nudging his spectacles upwards so they balanced on the bridge of his nose as he tapped the envelope in front of him with his right index finger “The money stays here boys, its FBI property now” he murmured “we’ll look after her from now on….you’re probably wondering how she survived this long on the streets. I’ll tell you two things about Gina Rossi you probably don’t know...she’s a coke whore, when she could afford it she’d snort thousands of dollars up that pretty little nose, when it wasn’t that it was something else or the other…either way the streets is where a junkie like that would always end up..and the other thing I know-Gina Rossi is a leech, always has been…maybe she found your bed Detective to share for a few nights ‘cause she needed one…I hate to break it to you but she’s probably been sharing a few others too…in between gallivanting around the sidewalks of Manhattan and playing the bum and the wino she’s been getting a roof over her head and three square meals a day in between the blow and the H and whatever hell she is on…don’t believe everything that comes out of her mouth…you have a read of this..”

  “Whatever the case might be” Durning grimaced “this woman was off our radar, no priors besides stupid misdemeanours, nothing for us to get concerned about”

  “Well that’s interesting Captain..” Agent Pearce smirked “y’know how she got to squatting outside the Continental Hotel and coming up on those misdemeanours as you put it? Only after going through hard cash staying at the hotel for about a month and a half…what your lack of research came up with was that she had a suite there, paying in hundred dollar bills and when her credit ran out, and they realised the money was bogus, they literally threw her out…strange how your great detective work didn’t figure that out all this time, eh?”

  “The hotel never filed a complaint with the police…” Durning replied, taken aback by Pearce’s shit eating grin.

  “That’s ‘cause she was banging the hotel owner” Pearce replied “you guys are always the last to know everything”

  “One question” John asked as he slit open the envelope, rummaging through the handful of papers and photographs within “why Manhattan, why here of all places…surely it would have been better to jump on the first plane out of here to Tahiti or something?”

  “That’s simple Detective” Agent Pearce replied as he walked calmly to the doorway, unfurling a packet of cigarettes and slipping one between his lips “she has a daughter here; abandoned her eight years ago when we put her in the programme. Not that she had much of a choice. We don’t think it’s a coincidence she made her way here of all places…love, protection, self preservation, whatever the hell her motive is…that’s the theory I’m running with…she’s here for exactly that reason”

  “How would she know where she is?” John asked as he pressed his fingertips to his forehead, massaging an impending migraine.

  “When you have that much at stake” Pearce nodded “you realise that the most valuable commodity you can buy is information-and that my friend is the easiest thing to buy for the right price”

  Chapter Ten

  Andie leant against the wall and gazed out of the window to the streets below. A breath of wind blew against her cheek through a crack left open and she promptly latched the window shut. The fragrance of Sean’s aftershave was carried into the room behind her and down the bare walls. Her eyes followed his naked torso as it lay there on the bed. She tip toed nearer, slipping her shoes on quietly and adjusting the fit of her clothes.

  “You’re going then…” Sean muttered. “This was a mistake” Andie mumbled under her breath as she glanced at her wristwatch shocked that the time was almost 22:30 “this shouldn’t have happened.”

  “What does it say then that it did?” Sean asked as he sat up in the bed, rifling his hands through his hair as he felt his heart beating, his pulse racing.

  “You know this is much more than about physical attraction, about sex” Andie replied as she faced the door, unable to look at him “I am still attracted to you, I shouldn’t have put myself in this position…but I did do it and I can’t change that. Just because we slept together doesn’t mean I still love you enough to carry on like this… that we should still be married to one another” she sighed.

  “Right” Sean scowled “I’m glad it’s as black and white as that then, all you had to do was explain, you could have skipped past the moaning and screwing part”

  “Don’t be an asshole” Andie shot back “what do you want me to say? Things like this can happen, it doesn’t change the facts..and I didn’t see you clawing me off you”

  “That’s because I know how I still feel, at least one of us does” Sean shook his head as he rose to his feet, wrapping his shirt around him “and you don’t just fall in bed with your ex if there isn’t still something there..”

  “Well I’m with Ben now and that-” Andie began before Sean cut her off “-well do you love him?” he demanded, letting the silence linger as he studied her forlorn expression, knowing she didn’t need to think about the answer.

  “No of course I don’t, we haven’t gone that far yet” Andie replied as she turned to face him, placing her hand within his “but that doesn’t change how I feel about our relationship…I saw you after a long time and maybe it rekindled something for a moment, but I know how I feel now and this is a mistake Sean, it shouldn’t have happened and I should go”

  “So it’s final then…” Sean grunted as he strolled casually over to the bedside table to light a cigarette, studying the tip as he flicked the fragments into an ashtray “you want to sign the dotted line and give up on it all”

  “We haven’t been going in the same direction together for a long time now, your drinking, your behaviour, everything” Andie looked down “and what happened just now doesn’t change it-the way you have been around Peter before I left just sealed it..”

  “Well come on then, you want to sign this fuckin’ crappy little thing let’s get down to it” Sean spat, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air as he began rummaging around the drawers of the cabinet nearest to him, yanking drawers in and out and slamming them as exaggeratedly as he could.

  “I’m going..” Andie replied as she made her way to the door “read it all, sign it and bring it over tomorrow. I’ve read the thing more times than I’d care to remember, we’ll sign it off tomorrow and then it’ll be done, no hassle-you won’t have to put up with my shit any longer”

  “I’m still not happy about the visitation rights” Sean answered through gritted teeth, feeling the weight of realisation crash down upon his shoulders.

  “We’ll sort something out, I won’t keep you from Peter..I wouldn’t do that…goodnight…” Andie trailed off, pausing to turn her head slightly, wishing she could face Sean one last time, but she couldn’t. The door closed. Sean took a drag of his cigarette and hung his head, waiting for her to come through the door once more. But it remained shut.

  *

  The sound of rambunctious laughter carried through the porch window as Andie approached the driveway of her house. It was closer to eleven than she thought and was immediately cross with herself that the sound of her late arrival would wake Peter. She stood by the door patiently as she inserted the key into the lock. Pausing for a moment, she listened in and could hear Ben's bellowing laughter and another male voice that she did not recognise. It was deep, gravely, like the sound of a rusty steel chain being dragged over granite. She turned the key and pushed open the door, immediately struck by the sight of twirling wisps of cigarette smoke clouding the hallway. She slamme
d the door shut, kicked off her shoes and made her way to the entrance of the drawing room, animatedly waving the mist of smoke as she stood there, a look of thunder written across her face.

  Ben sat there on the sofa couch, his shoulders drooped, his beaming smile permanently glued to his sweaty face. His fingers clasped a large cigar and his eyes were heavily glazed over, the stench of his alcohol breath wafting across the room to her nostrils. The other man in the room had his back to her. As Ben looked up to see her standing there, the other man did not turn around to face her. Instead he continued to lean further back into the chair, his legs uncrossing as he took a drag from his own cigar. "Ahhh.." Ben exclaimed as his smile widened "the fair maiden finally returns to her abode" he chirped in a faux upper crusted British accent.

  "I got held up, it was unavoidable" she lied as she gingerly made her way in "I can see you've been coping well without me though, you and your friend…"

  The other man tilted his face slightly towards her as she stared down at him. He was tall, broad shouldered, sharply dressed in a black suit, a crisp white silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his blue eyes offset by his hard, uncompromising jaw line. His brow was furrowed, his lips slightly parted. Nothing about him was reassuring.

  "Peter's sleeping.." Andie said as she found herself looking away from the stranger's fierce gaze "at least he was..what's with all this commotion? Why are you smoking in the house? And who the hell is this?" she blurted as she flashed a glare at the man who was now staring directly at Ben, eagerly awaiting his response. "Well I was waiting up and waiting up" Ben sighed "and I got tired of flickin' through 55 channels and seeing there was nothing on..and then the doorbell rung, well I thought it was you and-"

  "-it was me!" laughed the stranger, his deep voice crackling loudly as his shoulders heaved up and out. He stared ahead at Ben who took his cue to giggle uncontrollably in response. The stranger laughed louder now, his cackling becoming deeper and deeper as he continued to stare at Andie.