by Rachel Ford
Then, the two men walked into Tiny’s, and the door swung shut after them. Alfred released a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. The first bit of the plan worked. What’s more, Boyle hadn’t given Mario the word to cancel this drop.
That meant their gamble had paid off. They’d bet on an honest detective. The taxman hoped he was a smart one, too. He didn’t see anyone out here, except the occasional appearance of their group in the apartment window. For this to work, though, they needed more than their past selves here. He hoped the shadows and alleys around them hid Boyle and his men. He hoped they hid Joe Donnelly. He hoped they held someone who would help this madcap plan come to fruition.
“Kennedy,” Ray hissed. “Twelve o’clock.”
Alfred’s eyes flew to the street. Sure enough, Walton Kennedy was headed for the pub. He walked with an easy step, and the sight rather rankled the IRS man. Crooked cops, in his mind, were bad enough. They were a disgrace to their badge, a stain on the reputation of law enforcement and a slap to the face of society. But a dirty IRS agent?
Well, he took that personally. They were agents, like himself, who had sworn to protect the glue that bound society together, that underlying principle of civilization, that collective responsibility protected individual wellbeing. It wasn’t for the faint of heart, their line of service. It wasn’t for the glory hounds and show-offs. They didn’t make movies about taxmen. There were no IRS agent procedurals flooding primetime. Society didn’t romanticize and idolize the men and women who wore that badge.
They worked in obscurity, unseen and even reviled by the average citizen. But, Alfred believed in his core, they were the thin blue line between order and chaos, between society and anarchy, between civilization and barbarism. They were – and he didn’t think it boastful to say – like the superheroes of Nancy’s comics, working in shadow or behind a mask: ignored, misunderstood and even rejected by the society in whose service they labored, day in and day out.
It was a heavy cross to bear, but someone had to do it. Someone had to don the cape. Someone had to put on the badge.
So it rankled Alfred in a very visceral way to see a man like Walton Kennedy, who had donned and then betrayed that badge, walk with an easy step. By rights, he should have been crushed under the weight of his crimes.
Instead, he adjusted his hat with a cool indifference, and strode into Tiny’s Pub. Alfred scowled at the door, at the afterimage of the betrayer seared into his consciousness.
So lost in these thoughts was the taxman that he yelped out loud at the sound of a whistle, high and sharp in the stillness of the night. Seeming to pour out of the brickwork all around the pub, uniformed bodies swarmed toward the building.
“Hot dog,” Ray exclaimed. “That crazy Irishman actually listened.”
Alfred yelped again as a flash of light illuminated the darkened street. “Joe Donnelly,” Nancy realized. “It’s a camera flash.”
“Dori did it, then,” the detective said, his voice brimming with pride. “She got him to come to the meet.”
Commentary was put on hold as the scene unfolded before them. A swarm of officers burst into the pub’s front door, and a few more rounded on the side doors. Angry shouts filled the night, and then – Alfred flinched – gun shots rang out.
Ray moved for the building, but Nancy caught his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Those are my men. I have to help them.”
“You’re still a fugitive, Ray,” she reminded him. “You go storming in there with your gun out, they’re as likely to take you for one of Mario’s boys as anything else.”
“Dammit,” he scowled. “You’re right.”
All at once, Alfred heard the sounds of glass shattering. He threw a glance in the direction it seemed to come from, and gaped. A bespectacled man, briefcase in hand, was pushing himself out of a broken, first floor window. “It’s Kennedy.”
Another searing burst of light cut through the darkness, and the taxman blinked away the circles and bursts that danced in his vision. When he could see again, Kennedy had already extracted himself from the window, and was picking himself up off the ground.
There were no police officers outside. Other than themselves and the photographer – who, Alfred noted, was still concealed in shadow, somewhere – no one else seemed to be around. “We can’t let him get away,” he said.
“No,” Ray agreed. “Not after everything he’s done.”
“What about getting caught?”
“Nance,” Alfred said, “we can’t let him escape. Not after all he did. Not after all he was willing to do. He would have stolen Ray and Dori’s entire lives. Plus, he betrayed the agency.”
“He turned his back on the badge,” Lorina put in.
“He betrayed everything we stand for.”
Nancy sighed. “I just…hope no one shoots us.”
“Alea iacta est,” Ray said, his tone sober, his eyes flinty.
The taxman glanced up. “‘The die is cast,’” he nodded appreciatively. “If this is going to be our Rubicon, then so be it.”
The detective nodded resolutely. “Well said, taxman.”
She rolled her eyes. “God, are all Italians this melodramatic? Or is it just you two?”
Alfred frowned at her. “Wow, that sounds like stereotyping to me, Nance.” Then, he added with a grin, “But, yeah, it’s pretty much all of us.”
She grinned too. “Great.”
“It’s one of the perks of dating an Italian.”
“Bugs, you mean.”
“Hey now.”
Ray cleared his throat, reminding them, “He’s on the move, guys.”
“Oh. Right.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Walton Kennedy had a good head start on them, but Ray Lorina was no slouch. He closed the distance quickly, and was within a few strides before the rogue agent even realized he was being pursued. Nancy managed to keep up with the detective, and Alfred managed to keep them in sight, at least.
So he saw as Walton rounded on the detective, a glint of steel catching the light of the streetlamps. Fudge muffins. A gun.
He saw Lorina come to a dead halt, and Nancy almost careen into him as she stopped too. “It’s over, Kennedy,” the detective urged. “Drop the gun. There’s no walking away from tonight.”
The bespectacled agent seemed to hesitate. “There is if I kill you.”
“You’ll have to kill me too,” Nancy put in.
He blinked at that. “I will, then.”
“You’ll kill a dame?” Ray wondered, incredulously. “You’re a bigger rat than I had you figured for, then.”
Alfred, now, wheezed onto the scene. “There’s…cops…everywhere.”
“You won’t get out of here alive. And even if you do, they’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
“Mario will turn evidence on you in a New York minute,” Nancy put in, “if he thinks it’ll buy some time. You know that.”
“You’re disposable, Kennedy. You always were. Everyone is to dirtbags like that. So drop the bean shooter.”
Alfred was still catching his breath. He’d drawn up beside Nancy, a few yards away from the armed man. Footsteps, meanwhile, rang out on the pavement behind them.
Walton glanced up, and his eyes widened. “You’re right, Lorina. But you should have kept your nose out of it. Me? I’d rather go out in a flash of Chicago lightning.” He raised the gun until it was level with the detective’s head.
“No,” Nancy called, darting forward.
“Nance,” Alfred screamed, leaping toward her. He collided with her just as she was lifting off her heels, and the pair of them careened onto the pavement a few steps away. Meanwhile, it seemed hell itself had opened to swallow up the night. The sounds of gunfire rained down all around them.
They landed hard and heavily on the concrete. “Ouch. Oh God,” Nancy moaned. “Alfred, what in the hell?”
He, though, clung to her, covering her body with his. He had no idea what w
as going on, but he suspected he wasn’t going to live through the next few seconds. He wanted to make sure, at least, that she did. There were cops behind them. He’d inferred that from Walton’s suicidal commentary. Even if the other agent took down Lorina, it’d be a matter of moments before the cops took him down. All Alfred had to do, he decided, was keep Nance alive long enough for them to stop the shooter.
“Damn it,” she said a moment later, “let me go.”
The gunfire had stopped. He opened his eyes, one at a time. He hurt, but not, he suspected, like he’d hurt if bullets had torn into him. Lorina was standing over them. “You okay, Miss Nancy? Alfred?”
“Other than being suffocated, yes,” Nance declared, pushing against him. “Dammit, Alfred, let go.”
Now, the taxman did as he was bid. Ignoring the agony in his knees and elbows, he sat up. “What…happened?”
Ray offered them both a hand. “Nancy’s diversion gave me time to draw,” he said, adding with a shrug, “And Ray Lorina doesn’t miss when he shoots.”
Alfred glanced at the pavement where Walton Kennedy had stood. He wasn’t standing any more, and for half an instant the taxman thought the other man might be dead. He was lying in a slowly expanding pool of blood. But, then, Walton moved, groaning as he did so.
Further explanation necessarily had to wait, though. The stampede of footfalls Alfred had heard in the distance descended, led by the bull himself, Detective Isaac Boyle.
Ray raised his hands over his head in surrender as the officers reached them, but Boyle had no time for that. He walked over to the downed agent, glanced him over once, and returned to Lorina, clapping him on the back. “You crazy son-of-a-bitch. You weren’t lying.”
“I wasn’t,” he confirmed.
“Goddamn.” Boyle shook his head. “I guess I owe you an apology.”
Ray shrugged. “You saved my ass, coming here tonight. Let’s call it even.”
The bull considered, then nodded. “Alright.” Now, though, he scrutinized Lorina. “But what in God’s name did you do to yourself?”
“Oh…that’s, err, a disguise.”
“A disguise?” Boyle snorted. “You trying to be an Irishman or something?”
“It’s an improvement,” another detective declared.
“It is that. It is that. You don’t look half so ugly, Lorina.”
These, Alfred perceived, were meant as reconciliatory overtures. Ray grinned, declaring, “Figured changing my hair color would be all it took to outwit you lot.”
“Ray,” a voice called. It was Dori, and she was approaching at a full run. She propelled herself into his arms, and Lorina caught her up in a kiss. A second later, a flash lit up the night.
“Son-of-a-bitch, Donnelly,” someone called. “I’m going to make you eat that camera one of these days.”
Explanations were demanded and given all around. Where Alfred and Nancy were concerned, Ray was vague. “They’re feds,” he told Boyle. “They’ve been working this case for awhile.”
“A lady agent?” the Irishman shook his head. “The feds think of everything, I guess.”
“I guess.”
The explanation seemed to satisfy Boyle, though, not least of all because they promised to ship out now that the case was wrapped up. “Since it was you local boys who busted Mario, we’ll let you take him in.”
“Well, I guess you better walk him in with us,” he told Ray. “Since you tagged Kennedy.”
Goodbyes took a little longer. The fact was, the entire operation had concluded so fast that Alfred barely had time to process what had happened. One minute, he’d been facing certain death. The next it was all over. He was banged up and sore, but, otherwise, it might have all been a dream.
It didn’t help that the shifting timelines filled his head with competing memories. He remembered the original sequence of events as clearly as ever, but now he had a thousand fluctuations of the timeline all cramming his mind.
It was enough to give him a headache.
Still, he had a clear enough picture of what had, in the end, happened. Ray and Isaac had taken Mario Tomassi down. They’d taken Walton Kennedy and Trigger Finger Tomassi into custody too. They’d slapped cuffs on Benito Morretti and Vito Gallo. They’d charged Dona Esposito, too.
It was, as Ray put it, “a helluva bust.” And there’d be more, after tonight. The Tomassis’ days were numbered.
Now, the detective had gathered them in his home for a farewell toast.
Despite having a skinned up knee and a scuffed palm, Nancy had, by now, forgiven him for his bout of heroics. Alfred wasn’t quite sure he’d forgiven her for hers. “Dammit, Nancy Abbot, how the hell would I go on living if I lost you?” Her explanation – that she knew all Ray needed was a few seconds of distraction, long enough to draw his own gun – did nothing to assuage his annoyance with her. It couldn’t erase the fear he’d felt at seeing her leap into the line of gunfire. It couldn’t push aside the million and one variables that danced in his mind as he thought about what might have gone wrong.
Neither could her simple question. “What should I have done, Alfred? Let him shoot you?”
Still, as terrified as he’d been – as he still was – at the prospect of losing her, he couldn’t help but love her a little more for having done it. She’d been willing to take a bullet for him. She’d saved their lives. He didn’t doubt that. Their leap forward and sudden plummet to the ground might not have been picturesque, but it had certainly been an attention grabber; it had grabbed Walton’s attention long enough to distract him. Long enough for Ray to draw his gun, like Nance predicted, and pop him.
A strange battle of emotions raged in Alfred’s breast. On the one hand, his heart burned with admiration for her. On the other, he felt fear that he’d never known before. He thought of the what-ifs, the might-have-beens that they’d only narrowly avoided.
He thought of a life without Nancy Abbot. And he’d never, in all his years, imagined anything quite so bleak and miserable.
These thoughts, though, made way when Ray returned from the precinct. “To our friends, Nancy and Alfred,” he said, raising a glass to them.
“Nancy and Alfred,” Dori repeated.
“To our friends,” Nance countered, “Dori and Ray.”
“Dori and Ray,” the taxman repeated.
They drank their toast, and then Ray sighed. “Hell, taxman: this is goodbye, I guess.”
“I guess it is.”
“I have so many questions about your world. About ours. About what’s going to happen.”
“I have so many questions about yours,” Nancy said. “About what it’s like, now. Really like. About how things change. What it’ll feel like, to watch the twentieth century unfold.”
“I suppose you have to go back?” Ray asked.
“We do. We’ve got lives back in our time.”
“And our job needs us,” Alfred put in.
The detective nodded. “It does, taxman. The world needs more men like you.”
“It could use a few more like you, too,” Alfred conceded. Ray might not have been an IRS analyst like himself, but he was certainly part of the thin blue line between order and disorder.
He smiled. “Hey, cheer up, then. You did what you set out to do.”
“That’s true,” Alfred acknowledged. “We both did.”
“We did,” Ray nodded. “We came.”
“We saw,” Alfred answered.
And, in unison, the two men finished, “We conquered.”
Nancy and Dori exchanged glances and a subtle shake of the head – subtle, but not subtle enough to escape Alfred’s notice.
Ray pretended not to see, though. He raised his glass. “To conquering, taxman.”
“To conquering.”
“And to surviving living with Italians,” Nancy added.
“I’ll drink to that,” Dori agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Celebrations ran long, and alcohol flowed freely throughout. Alfred
wasn’t a teetotaler exactly, but he wasn’t much of a drinker, either. Consequently, by time he realized he should probably hold back, he was feeling rather silly. It took the rest of the group longer to catch up, but they did eventually.
“I’m going to miss the hell out of you, taxman,” Ray told him. It was sometime in the morning, but it was still dark outside.
“Me too,” Alfred nodded.
Dori had had a “quick lie down” on the sofa, and was now snoozing away peacefully. Nance had excused herself to the powder room, so the two men were alone. The taxman felt as if there was more to say, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to say it.
Of all the cases he’d investigated, of all the timeframes in history he might have meddled with, he’d been drawn to Ray’s. He’d been able to put together a sketch of the man’s life and personality through scraps of files and old news clippings. Ray’s story had spoken across time to the taxman. They’d only been acquainted for days, but he felt as if they were old friends. And he was about to lose his friend.
But how did you explain that? Alfred didn’t know.
“Time’s a funny master.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s eighty years in the scheme of things? Not a damned thing. And yet, a lifetime.” Ray shook his head. “When you go back, Dori and I will already be dead.”
The taxman nodded soberly. “I know.”
“Well,” Ray sighed.
“Well,” Alfred repeated.
They sat for a moment in silence, then Ray seemed to buck up. “But we have our whole lives ahead of us still. And so do you, taxman. You and Nancy.”
He considered this, then nodded. “We do.”
“And Alfred?”
“Yeah?”
“That girl of yours? She’s your Dori.” He shrugged. “That look you had, tonight? When she made for Kennedy? Well, you know how I felt when you showed me that file, saying Dori died? That’s the look. Like your world was about to end.”