by Con Lehane
With Adele curled up at the opposite end of the couch and Johnny working on his homework at the dining room table, Ambler began reading. As he had during the afternoon at the library, he stopped to watch Adele. Her face was relaxed, her eyebrows kneaded in concentration; this time there was an added distraction of her skirt riding up her thigh as she curled her legs under her.
After a while, she lowered the book she was reading to her lap. “This might be what you’re looking for. There’s a character here, an African American union boss, in charge of this comically corrupt union of bus drivers. He’s intolerably vain and totally ruthless. I think he was modeled on Idi Amin. The bus union is a front for drug dealing. So far his henchmen have killed off a rival drug kingpin and a couple of the bus drivers. The good guy is a white bus driver, an undercover cop. He’s enlisted a couple of black bus drivers as allies to take on the corrupt union leader and the drug dealers.”
“That sounds like a good story,” Johnny said. He’d finished his homework and was listening. “Can I read it when you’re done?”
“When you’re older,” Ambler said. He reached for the book. “Richard Wright was the head of a trucker’s union.”
Ambler read for a few minutes, skimming and skipping ahead. He put the book down and stared into space. “No telling what actually happened or what’s made up. But this is close enough for me to believe it’s based on Richard Wright’s union. If it is, Higgins had to know Wright and if he knew Wright, he lied to me about knowing Devon.”
Chapter 30
McNulty had a friend, an Irish guy who drove a livery cab based in Woodside. Years before when he drove a fleet cab in Manhattan, the driver, whose name was Finnegan, had been a steady customer at a bar McNulty worked in at the time. Finnegan, who might have had a first name but if he did, no one had ever heard it, knew everything one needed to know about the Irish parts of Queens, who everyone was, and where everyone went.
McNulty asked Finnegan to put the word out that he, Brian McNulty, was looking for a retired cop whose name—that he might or might not be using—was Paul Higgins, and who would have recently arrived from Boston. There were three or four cop bars in the area, two in Maspeth, a holdover from the Irish old days in Woodside, and one in Sunnyside. The Irish, a clannish people, tended to patronize their own, so that when a guy more or less fitting Higgins’s description arrived at LaGuardia, the car service guy picking him up was Irish, and being Irish knew Finnegan.
“He picked him up last week of a Thursday and dropped him off at O’Brien’s Harp and Shamrock.” Finnegan told McNulty as they drove from his apartment on the Upper West Side to Queens. “It’s not your everyday place, Brian. They call me when they need a cab. I pick up but don’t often go in. It’s not a welcoming place.
“O’Brien himself is a bitter man from the old country, came out of the troubles with a price on his head. Should have been killed a half-dozen times—and the world would be a kinder place if he had been. One night, I watched him bash in the skull of a harmless old drunk who’d peed himself at the bar. Women don’t go there. No foreigner, and that’s anyone not Irish, dare go there. God help the poor black fellow who wanders in by mistake.”
“I don’t suppose—”
Finnegan shook his head. “I’m Irish, I live in the neighborhood. I keep my mouth shut. I go in, no one bothers me. You could go in and have a drink with me. It might quiet a conversation or two, wouldn’t be a lot of smiling. But you’d be okay. Someone found out you’re on a mission, I wouldn’t say you’d make it out in one piece.”
“Let’s get a drink and see what happens.”
Finnegan shrugged. “You haven’t changed a bit, Brian. I thought by now you’d have gotten some sense. What’s your plan?”
McNulty shook his head. “I don’t have one.”
“As well you shouldn’t. Nothing like a plan to get you in trouble.”
The stale-beer smell hit them as soon as they opened the door. The music wasn’t loud, Nashville canned top-40 country music. The few men nursing beers at the bar turned to the door in unison, as if the move had been choreographed. Their faces likewise in unison registered no interest, and they turned as one back to the hockey game they’d been watching in a desultory way on the TV above the bar.
“This is a friend of mine, McNulty; he’s a bartender.”
The tall, thin guy behind the bar cocked an ear in their direction.
Finnegan ordered two bottles of Becks. “The beer lines,” he said under his breath, shaking his head, as the bartender bent to get them.
They drank the beers. When they finished, Finnegan paid the tab. McNulty placed a twenty under his empty bottle. “I understand a man named Paul Higgins stops in now and again. Would you tell him Brian McNulty, from a bar near the 42nd Street Library would like a word with him? Ill stop in tomorrow evening around 9:00. Perhaps he can leave a message with you.”
The bartender looked blankly in McNulty’s direction. Seeing that McNulty was finished, he picked up the twenty, folded it, leaned across the bar, and stuffed it in McNulty’s shirt pocket. “Never heard of him.”
“Credit to the trade,” McNulty said to Finnegan as they left. “We’ll stop back tomorrow evening. See what turns up.”
The next evening not long after 9:00, halfway through their second round of Becks, the door behind them opened, so McNulty and Finnegan turned with the rest of the barflies. This time, there was interest.
“Hey, Paul,” someone said. A chorus of greetings followed, such that it might have been the scene from The Iceman Cometh when Hickey finally arrives, but the name they called out was Paul.
He carried himself with assurance, though he moved slowly, almost clumsily, carrying a lot of aches and pains. He gestured with his arm, a kind of small wave, including everyone in it, acknowledging he was the main event for the night. Nothing hostile in his manner, not truculent, but something challenging and unforgiving in his face.
Higgins sauntered over to where McNulty and Finnegan sat watching him. “You’re looking for me?” His gaze was even, his voice calm, his manner unhurried. When McNulty didn’t respond, he signaled the bartender for a beer and gestured with his head toward McNulty. “He’s buying.” There was a slight smile in his eyes.
“I was hoping to run into you,” McNulty said. “I heard you were in Queens.”
“You didn’t find me. I found you.” The menace was less in his tone than in a slight shifting of his stance. “I’m guessing Ambler, the librarian who thinks he’s a detective, sent you.” He took a deliberate swallow of beer and walked to a booth without looking back.
McNulty picked up his beer and followed. He sat across from Higgins. “He’d like a word with you. What he wants from you, I don’t know.”
Higgins pointed his beer bottle at McNulty. “I can tell you. He found out the woman who was murdered in the library was my ex-wife, so he figures I killed her.”
McNulty went to the bar for another beer. Higgins nursed his. He was one of those men who could spend the night in a bar, seem to be drinking the whole time, and not be drunk at the end of the night. It didn’t have to do with how well they held their liquor; it was a misdirection trick they had of seeming to drink a lot without doing so, keeping their wits about them, as Higgins did.
“So here we are. What now?”
“That’s it. I gave you Ray’s message.”
Higgins half closed his eyes as if he could see better into McNulty that way. After a moment, he said, “He thinks he knows what’s going on. He don’t. You got a cell phone? Call him and let me talk to him.”
“Oh?” McNulty hadn’t expected this. Maybe he’d had a plan after all and this disrupted it. Still, he couldn’t see the problem, so he took out his phone.
“McNulty here, Ray.” He raised his eyebrows, looking at Higgins as he waited for Ray to adjust to his having called.
“I’m fine. It’s not an emergency. Why would I call you if it was an emergency? I have someone here who wishes to
speak to you. Take a deep breath; you’ll have to get flummoxed all over again.” He handed the phone to Higgins.
McNulty got only one side of the conversation, which told him plainly enough that what Higgins wanted was to know why Ambler thought the Arab hadn’t killed his ex-wife. He interrupted Ray’s answer with a few probing questions. At first, Higgins was impatient; later, he was dismissive. The one time he got his back up, he said, “That was a long time ago. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He also, it seemed, had his own agenda. “I was going to look you up anyway. I need to see some of the files I gave you.” He listened. “Right, the box I sealed.… I know it was opened.” He listened again. “I don’t want to see anyone.” A pause. “Especially not him.… Mike’s all right. Not on this.” This time, when he paused, he looked at McNulty. They shared an uneasy glance. His face twisted into an expression Ambler would find threatening if he could see it. “I don’t care what the rules are. It’s mine; I want it.”
He listened again, storm clouds rising in his eyes. “Okay. Okay. I get it. Let me think for a minute.” He lowered the phone and stared off in McNulty’s direction, not seeing him. After a moment he lifted the phone again. He tried to persuade Ray to meet him at the library that evening. It was clear Ray didn’t want to do this. It was equally clear Higgins wasn’t going to let up. Like a bulldog, he hung on. When Higgins’s arguments became repetitious—stubbornness against stubbornness—McNulty stopped paying attention.
After some time, he seemed to have reached an agreement. “That’s okay.” His voice softened. “I ain’t got anything against you or Mike.” When he finished the call, he tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. McNulty couldn’t see his expression until he turned and said, “We’ll do it tomorrow morning.”
McNulty nodded and made to stand.
Higgins stood also. “I’ll buy you and your pal dinner.” He gestured toward Finnegan. “He can come back and take me into the city in the morning.” He didn’t smile, but in a strange way, he was gregarious, not about to clap one of them on the back but his threatening manner was gone. “There’s a spaghetti place down the street. You okay with that?”
McNulty thought about saying no. He didn’t know what the guy wanted. Still, he should probably see how things played out. Besides he was hungry.
* * *
Ambler clicked off his phone and stared out the window at the building across the street before he turned to look at Johnny who was watching TV. He’d gotten himself into a mess and didn’t know how to get out, not sure he should have agreed to meet Higgins in the morning and let him look through the restricted files. He was a dangerous guy who might have murdered his ex-wife. Johnny shouldn’t be in his path, even if the danger was remote. He called Adele and asked her if Johnny could stay with her until Sunday.
She caught on right away. “What’s wrong, Raymond?”
“Something’s come up. I need to work late tonight.”
“You’re not at work and you’re not telling me the truth.”
“If I can bring Johnny over, I’ll tell you when I get there. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
When he finished the call, he went over and stood over Johnny. “How would you like to spend a couple of nights at Adele’s?”
Johnny face, when he looked up, was wrinkled with worry. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why did you have that weird conversation on the phone and call Adele and tell her there’s nothing wrong but can I stay at her place, and you’ll tell her when you get there?”
Ambler tousled his hair. “You’re too smart for your own good. What do you know of what’s been happening?”
Johnny turned his body toward Ambler and folded his hands in front of his chest. He pursed his lips and for a brief moment became a picture of what he might look like when he grew up. “A lady was killed at the library and you’re looking for the killer, even though you’re supposed to be a librarian, not a detective. Someone else was killed in the prison where my dad is. Adele knows an Arab guy—she went to see him in jail—who the cops think is the killer. You think someone else is the killer.” He scrutinized Ambler’s face. “You were probably talking to him on the phone just now, and you want me to go to Adele’s so he doesn’t come over here and kill me when he’s killing you.”
Ambler blinked a few times, watching his grandson. He hadn’t meant to, never thought it possible that he might, put Johnny in danger because of his penchant for looking into murders. “Are you worried someone might come in here?”
Johnny turned back to the TV, answering over his shoulder. “Nah! But I’ll go to Adele’s anyway. There’s nothin’ to eat here.”
It was easy anytime to get Johnny to go to Adele’s. He was crazy about her. It was probably an unnecessary precaution, and he might not be safer there than if he stayed where he was what with Gobi and his friends chasing after Adele. Arabs after Adele, Paul Higgins threatening him, and kidnappers possibly lurking around his grandmother’s, the poor kid didn’t have a safe haven in the world.
* * *
“So…” Adele said when she opened the door. She bent down and hugged Johnny. “Go in my room and watch TV. Did you bring everything you need for school tomorrow?”
Johnny answered yes, politely, and went to the back of the apartment to the bedroom. The boy would challenge, argue, or go sullen with Ambler sometimes now. With Adele, he responded like she was the general and he was the private, ‘yes, ma’am,’ with a big smile, everything but the snappy salute.
Still standing, Adele waited, her gaze boring into Ambler, expecting, he imagined, the obedience from him she got from Johnny.
He told her about the call from Higgins.
“Call Mike Cosgrove. You’ve done their work for them. They can come to the library and haul him in.”
“I told him I wouldn’t. The police aren’t after him anyway.”
“Mike Cosgrove is. He went to Boston looking for him.”
Ambler dropped his gaze, looking away from her at the far wall. “He’s not at the moment. He’s after Gobi.”
As usual, she caught on. “Why? Did he find out something that exonerates Paul Higgins?… I doubt it. What happened, Raymond?”
He met her gaze again. “It’s not his fault, but I can’t tell you why.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s not me. It’s Mike. He told me something in confidence.”
She puffed herself up. Color rose in her cheeks. “Okay. You stay here. I’ll go after Paul Higgins myself. Maybe if I find him at the library and he kills me, someone will pay attention.”
He smiled. She really did act like a wet hen when she was mad. If he told her how fetching she was right now—her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing, her jaw jutting—she’d hit him over the head with a frying pan.
“What are you smirking about, you dimwit. I swear, Raymond, there’s something wrong with your head.”
Something changed in her expression then, a flash of understanding and affection in her eyes. He stepped toward her; she stepped toward him. In a moment, she was in his arms. Something like happiness glistened in her eyes. Their lips met; her mouth opened and softened against his. They kissed, parted, kissed again, looked into each other’s eyes and kissed again. When they stopped, he held her in his arms, her face inches from his. “You’re really good at that,” he said.
She stepped back and looked at him starry-eyed. “What happened?”
He stopped for a moment, not sure what she meant. Did she regret what they’d done? But no, she didn’t.
“Actually, that was a lot of fun. Wanna do it again?” So they did. When they stopped, she took his hands in hers and put them on her breasts. They kissed again.
“Now what?” she said, breathlessly, her face flushed, blinking her eyes. “We have to stop. Johnny’s here.”
“I have to go to the library,” Ambler said, rearranging the front of his
pants where they bulged.
* * *
The library, with its marble hallways, cavernous ceilings, and echoing silence felt like a cathedral in the late-night emptiness. Ambler felt like an intruder, a burglar, though he was authorized to work in the library after hours. That this permission didn’t include working in restricted files and breaking NYPD evidence seals he tried to push to the back of his mind. He wanted to take a look at the files before he met with Higgins in the morning, hoping he might discover what Higgins was looking for before he did.
He’d finished reading the Higgins’s thriller he believed was inspired by the Richard Wright events. One thing that stuck with him, that might be authentic, was the relationship between the hero-undercover cop and his superior. The undercover cop, something of a maverick, didn’t cotton to supervision. For him, the NYPD brass was as much of a hindrance as the obstacles put up by the bad guys he was after. Every few chapters, he was called on the carpet for some violation of department policy. The chief would reprimand him with a wink and a nod and tell him to make sure there was no record of his misdeeds. This reinforced for Ambler that, in the world of infiltration and undercover work, the rules we like to think police follow don’t apply.
The file boxes were where he and Adele left them, so Ambler waded in. As he shuffled through the files, reading a sentence or two at the top of a page, skimming the rest, he felt frustrated because he didn’t know what was in the file that Higgins would want. It took a few moments of staring into space for him to realize he wasn’t going to find what Higgins was looking for because Higgins wasn’t looking for what was in the file, he wanted to know what was no longer in the file.
Chapter 31
Mike Cosgrove was sure Muhammed, the mullah in Bay Ridge, knew more about Gobi Tabrizi than he told either him or Ray. He’d have to call Ostrowski to find out if this particular Muhammed was under surveillance. He didn’t want to talk to the asshole, but he’d have to. He’d already had to go through him once to get a tail put on Adele Morgan—not something Ray would be pleased about if he found out.