Shamrock Alley

by Ronald Damien Malfi

  Creep, John thought, sipping his beer and watching Mickey’s skulking form pass by the bar’s only window.

  Beside him, the no-name tagalong finished off his own beer and began searching through the pockets of his coat for money to pay his tab. A loose dollar here, a handful of change there—everything he found was plucked from his coat and pushed into a disorganized heap on the bar. John watched him from the corner of his eye. The kid was young, maybe eighteen, and had a purple-brown bruise along one cheek. There was nothing youthful in his demeanor, however; his features were hard, his brow perpetually creased in either thought or confusion. Downstairs, the kid had watched Mickey slam Dino Moratto with a look of subtle veneration on his face. Now, in Mickey’s absence, he looked lost and out of sorts.

  John pushed his beer glass off to one side. He hooked a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lit it, inhaled. The nameless kid’s eyes caught his in the mirror above the bar. “What’s your name?”

  “Ashleigh.”

  John nodded toward the front door. “You gonna follow him around all night?” he said, meaning Mickey.

  “No,” Ashleigh said after a short pause, which confessed that yes, he had planned on doing that very thing.

  “You know him long?”

  “Not really,” the kid said. He seemed uncomfortable talking about Mickey. “Know him from the neighborhood. What about you?”

  The bartender was sweeping a dishrag along the counter at the far end of the bar, his movements deliberately slow.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t really know him.”

  The kid counted his money and left no tip on the bar. Heading toward the door, he turned and nodded in John’s direction. “See you around,” Ashleigh said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SEAN SULLIVAN, THE MEEK-LOOKING KID WHO’D helped unload the whiskey from the Ryder truck, was a cutter. Both his arms, from the wrists and up past the elbows, all the way to the shoulders, were covered in scar tissue. The thin, reddened puckers along his skin were so numerous that it seemed a trick of the eye.

  “Did that one with a straight razor when I was fifteen,” he said, almost proudly. He and John were seated in a small booth toward the back of the Cloverleaf, a billow of cigarette smoke wafting about their heads. This evening, the bar was fairly populated, some of Mickey and Jimmy’s boys crowded around the front of the bar, pounding back shots and growling at each other in intoxicated banter. “Sliced my shit right up.”

  “What the hell for?” John said.

  “For?” As if the question made no sense. “I just fucking did it.” The kid rolled up his other sleeve. “Look at this one.” Another road map of scars was revealed. Sean pointed to a particular scar distinctly shaped like a six-sided star. “Star of fucking David. You know what that is? It’s a Jew star. In memory of Jacob Goldman. So I never forget him. You know who Jacob Goldman is?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Course not,” Sean said, now more to himself than John. “I’ll tell you about him someday.” The kid smiled weakly. The way the light struck his face, he almost appeared to have no skin at all—just a skull with eyes. “I’m in a good mood tonight,” Sean continued, “and I ain’t gonna ruin it talking about that son of a bitch.”

  A twisted shadow fell across the table. John looked up and saw Mickey O’Shay standing above him, a cigarette poking from between his lips, his eyes hollow and glassy.

  Mickey looked at Sean Sullivan. “Hit the bricks.”

  Sean pulled himself out of the booth and pushed his way through the crowd toward the bar. He walked timidly, like someone ashamed of his own trespass. Wasting no time, Mickey quickly claimed the kid’s seat across from John, puffing hard on his cigarette. His fingers were stained brown from the nicotine.

  “What’s going on?” John said.

  “How come you can’t move any more money?”

  John leaned back in the booth, his eyes scanning the crowd of people around the bar. He felt his bowels tighten and his heart skip as his eyes fell on Bill Kersh, seated at the bar and sipping a gin and tonic. Kersh was facing in his direction, though his eyes were unfocused, one hand busy in a bowl of unsalted pretzels. Then Kersh’s eyes did focus on him, looked straight at him, and it seemed like their eyes locked for an eternity.

  “I told you, Mickey, your price is too goddamn high. I can’t move shit when I’m paying twenty points.”

  “Get better customers,” Mickey said.

  “You wanna do business, drop your price. Have a sit-down with your guy. Me and you’ll go, try and negotiate a better deal.”

  Mickey’s mind was working.

  Somewhat impatiently, John said, “Well …?”

  Mickey’s eyes jerked up in his direction, seemed to flutter in their sockets, then held their ground. In a toneless voice, Mickey said, “What about guns? Think you can move some guns?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE CALM RISE AND SWELL OF THE Hudson, mingled with the traffic along the West Side Highway, was an everlasting symphony. The water was cold and muddy, the color of slate, and hugged the iron pilings along the river. Summer months, the piers were always hot and busy. Winters, they were as barren as an arctic landscape. Even the dock workers, packaged in corduroy coats, thick canvas pants, and broadcloth shirts, seemed less formidable this time of year, as if something inside them had slowed and frozen along with nature.

  Standing outside his Camaro while smoking a cigarette and sipping coffee, John’s eyes trolled the piers. Behind him, the great hulking framework of the Intrepid lay enormous against the steel sky, its hull moored to the piers by links of iron chain. Up ahead, a Hindu guy pushed a hot dog cart along the bulwark, his yellow-and-white-striped umbrella pulling slow rotations in the wind. A number of cars were parked along the street and a few people were out along the promenade, though the afternoon was bitterly cold and windy. Of those cars, one of them was Bill Kersh’s sedan.

  John took a labored sip of coffee. He was coming down with a cold, could feel it slowly working its way through his system, and attributed the onslaught of such an illness to the unconventional hours he’d been keeping with Mickey O’Shay and his crew. Last night, he’d recognized the initial breath of fever down his spine and along his neck. There were also deep brown grooves beneath his eyes, and his skin had taken on a jaundiced hue. From the oncoming illness or a lack of sleep—he did not know which.

  He’d spent very few hours at home the past couple of weeks. What little time he had was spent languishing in the dark of the apartment like a thief and a stranger. Either Katie was asleep in bed already, or she had left to spend the night at his father’s place. Whatever the case, he was alone. And when sleep finally found him on these nights, it was restless and cruel, like an afternoon half-sleep, his mind filling with loud images and the phantom cracks of gunshots.

  Finishing his coffee, he tossed the Styrofoam cup into the nearest receptacle. It did little to warm his insides. Pausing, he looked out over the Hudson and tried to attain from the great river whatever peace he was able. It was very little.

  Sucking the last bit of life from his cigarette, he pitched the butt over the bulwark railing and turned his head to one side, his hair whipping against his face in the wind. He could make out the back of Kersh’s sedan wedged between two other vehicles along the promenade.

  A beat-up Toyota pulled up behind the Camaro and parked. A sputter of exhaust billowed from the tailpipe. The driver kept the engine running. John could make out two people in the car—the driver, and a second person in the back seat.

  One of the back doors opened. Mickey O’Shay stepped out.

  A small part of his mind had hoped Jimmy Kahn would accompany Mickey on the gun deal, but the driver was not Kahn—just another one of their straphangers.

  “You’re late,” he said, watching Mickey move around to the trunk of the car. This afternoon, Mickey O’Shay’s eyes were inanimate and slow. “It’s freezing out here, and you’re late.”


  “Come here,” Mickey said, motioning for him to approach the Toyota’s trunk. Mickey slipped a key into the trunk and popped it open.

  Peering into the trunk from the curb, John could make out two wool blankets rolled up into balls, a pair of corduroy pants, an old hockey stick, and other senseless junk. Mickey pushed most of this stuff aside and grabbed the lip of the carpet that lined the interior floor of the Toyota’s trunk. Like a doctor undoing a bandage, he peeled back the carpeting with exaggerated care. He was wearing black wool gloves with the fingers cut out.

  Revealed within the well of the trunk was a large white canvas bag closed tight with a drawstring. Fisting one gloved hand and breathing warmth into it, Mickey struggled to work the canvas bag open with only his left hand. John took a step down from the curb and moved beside him. The trunk stank of exhaust and gasoline. Standing there, he began shivering beneath his leather jacket and sweater, yet at the same time could feel blisters of sweat dripping down his neck and along his ribcage.

  Fever, he thought. I think my goddamn fever just hit.

  He felt his entire body grow tired in an instantaneous clap. His head suddenly felt too big for his neck. The cup of coffee he’d just downed now seemed like a bad idea. A small moan escaped him, and he slid his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket; his right hand fell upon his gun.

  “Okay,” Mickey breathed, a plume of vapor wafting from his mouth. He slid a .32-caliber semiautomatic from the bag and rested it on the trunk’s carpeting.

  “You said this was a new gun. It looks dirty.”

  Mickey shrugged. “It’s been layin’ around.”

  “How many more you got?”

  “Maybe a dozen right now,” Mickey said. “A hundred or so by next week. Two hundred apiece, no discounts. You interested?”

  He nodded, peering over the lip of the trunk at the gun. A hundred or so by next week? he thought. Jesus Christ!

  “What about this one?” Mickey said. “Think you can move it?”

  “I can,” he said, “but I don’t got the cash on me now.”

  “Take it,” Mickey said. “I trust ya. Pay me when you move it.”

  The driver’s side door opened and a severe-looking kid with a pug face and deep-set eyes stepped out. He had the unlit nub of a cigar tucked into the right corner of his mouth and was wearing a knitted Islanders cap. His lips were full and purple in the cold, resembling two cuts of liver.

  “All right,” John said, and Mickey quickly replaced the .32 in the canvas, pulled tight the drawstring, and sat on the bumper of the Toyota while John took the gun and put it in the trunk of the Camaro. The kid with the cigar was leaning against the open driver’s door, trying without much luck to light the end of the stogie with an uncooperative Zippo. The kid eyed John from beneath the ribbed band of his knit cap. As if in approval, the kid nodded once, then looked with some disappointment at his Zippo.

  “How’s Jimmy?” he said, slamming the Camaro’s trunk and moving back around to the rear of the Toyota. His nose was running, his eyes starting to tear from the wind. He could feel his muscles tightening. “Haven’t seen him around in a while.”

  Mickey had shut the Toyota’s trunk and was sitting on it now, tugging at his gloves. “You gonna be around tonight?” Mickey said, ignoring his question.

  “Depends. What’s up?”

  “An opportunity,” Mickey said. “Because I know how much you like making money.”

  The .32 was like an early Christmas present for Dennis Glumly. With an expression of excitement on his face—or, rather, the closest thing to excitement the man was able to muster—he admired the weapon on John’s desk like a child peering in a shop window at a brand new bicycle. After John detailed his conversation with Mickey for both Glumly and Brett Chominsky, the NYPD detective rushed the gun out of the office to check ballistics and prints. If the gun could be traced to an unsolved homicide, there would be one more thing to stick against Mickey O’Shay. And if Kahn’s prints happened to be on the gun … well, it would be the only real evidence they’d have against the man.

  Downstairs, Kersh was in the pit, going over reports and sipping a Diet Coke.

  “You hiding out?” John said, coming up behind him.

  “As much as ever. What’s the deal with this thing tonight?”

  He explained to Kersh what Mickey had told him—to meet outside the candy store at eleven o’clock if he wanted to make a couple extra bucks.

  “If we’re lucky, he’s set up a meeting with his source,” he said, pulling up a chair across from Kersh at the table. In the warmth of the pit he felt a little bit better, but knew that his fever was gradually climbing. “I’ve been bugging him like crazy to get those points down.”

  “Maybe,” Kersh said. He didn’t sound too convinced.

  “I want to set them up for one more big buy,” he said, “hopefully flush out Kahn. We get him dirty, we can close this thing.”

  “And if he doesn’t show?” Kersh said. “If he never shows? What do we do then? Keep chasing these two bastards for the next twenty years, John?” Perhaps bothered by his own sudden passion, Kersh paused, relaxing. “Look,” he continued, “I see you getting wrapped up in this thing, and it bothers me.”

  “We’ve already talked about this.”

  “The past month you’ve been slinking around in the mud with these assholes, getting half-bombed every night—getting sick—and for what? To get inside their heads? To see if maybe someone tips you off about some bullshit hit they did eight months ago in goddamn Queens? That’s not why we’re here, John. And it’s not worth it.”

  “Trust me,” he said, “and we’ll get the whole ball of wax. I’m okay, I can handle myself. I’m not about to give up on something after all this time just because it’s too hard. You know me, Bill.”

  “I know,” said Kersh. “That’s what scares me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  BY ELEVEN O’CLOCK, TRAFFIC HAD DWINDLED ALONG Tenth Avenue. Pulling his car up outside Calliope Candy, John had the heater cranked and the defroster running. On his hands he wore leather racing gloves—warm enough to keep the cold air at bay, yet workable enough to permit maximum dexterity. His jacket zippered almost to the neck, he could feel sweat coursing from his armpits and rolling down his sides. But still his face was cold, his lips numb even with the heat pumping, and he was still aware of the faint throbbing at the center of his hands.

  Lights were still on in the candy store, but the shade had been pulled, making it impossible to see inside. To his left, cars coasted along the street. A few people hurried across the intersection, the collars of their coats pulled tightly around their necks.

  There was a streetlight on the corner of Tenth and 53rd Street, a few feet away from the telephone booth outside Calliope Candy. A figure stood there in the darkness, hunched over in the cold, his face shielded from the streetlight and his back facing John. The figure was definitely male, but too short to be Mickey. There was a restless motion to the man’s body as he rocked uneasily on his feet, his eyes out over the intersection.

  As if he had read John’s mind, the figure noticed the car and moved toward it, hopping down the curb—Mickey does not hop, he thought—and approaching the driver’s side door. The figure bent down, his face inches from the window, and peered inside.

  It was Sean Sullivan.

  He rolled down his window.

  “Hey, John.”

  “Sean,” he said. “What the hell you doin’ out here?”

  “Mickey said to meet ‘im,” Sean said, his teeth chattering in his head. “Said he’s taking me someplace.”

  John’s eyes darted to the transmitter stashed inside the casing of the cigarette lighter. It was resting on his dashboard, pointed toward the passenger seat. It was windy outside; there was a good possibility Sean Sullivan’s words got lost in the wind. But if not, then there would be no doubt that Bill Kersh, who was parked one block over on the corner of Tenth and 52nd Street, had heard.

  �
�You goin’ with us?” he asked Sean.

  The kid shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t say nothing ‘bout you.”

  “Where’s Mickey now?”

  “Inside,” Sean said, nodding his head in the direction of the candy store.

  “Well, get in the car before your freeze your balls off.”

  “Shit, thanks.”

  Sean hurried around the front of the car while John popped the lock on the passenger door. The kid climbed in and plopped down in the seat like someone who’d been on his feet all day. He pulled the door closed—did not slam it like Mickey—and immediately held his hands up to the vents in the dashboard.

  “Christ,” Sean said, looking him over. “Man, you don’t look so good. You sick?”

  “A little.”

  “Flu?”

  “Don’t know,” John said. “Probably.”

  “I just got over one …”

  “You know anything about tonight?” John asked.

  “Nope,” Sean said, rubbing his hands together. “Just said to meet ‘im here. Eleven o’clock. That’s all.”

  John could see some of the scars along Sean’s hands as he held them up to the vents, a striking pink discoloration against the cold, white flesh of his skin. “How’d you get hooked up with Mickey?” he asked, peering past Sean and at the front of the candy store. Still no movement.

  “They know my older brother. Been in Rikers last two years.”

  “You been runnin’ with these guys long?”

  “On and off,” Sean said. He was young and impressed by the violence Mickey and Jimmy dispensed, and by the power their names held. They were sacred in his eyes—John could tell that just by looking at the kid, and by the way the kid looked at them—probably more inspiring than any adult male figure had ever been to him. For Sean Sullivan, the two Irish hoods from the West Side were heroes, and his association with them was a privilege.

  Still, he was just a kid—maybe eighteen or nineteen—and his patriotism to Mickey O’Shay and Jimmy Kahn seemed a grievous, complicated thing.