by Gerard Cappa
His strength crawled all over me now, I struggled to keep him close, slow his moves for neck or limbs. And we had rehearsed this often as kids, the rough-house play fighting that sometimes crossed the line and drew a cuff from his mother, my mother. But now he was almost there, I knew he wouldn’t stop, then it would be finished. I knew it, and was proud of him, but no-one else could have tested him like this, he knew that too and was grateful. We coiled together in that stained space, obliged like necro-parasites to endure our warped symbiosis until one failed, until the champion would claim his share of glory and proceed, heartened by the soul of the dead, the dead that would live on in his blood, making him stronger.
Then something happened, he punched me hard on the cracked rib again, but this time I felt no pain, just read the shock in his eyes as he realised what was coming. He had seen it before, could recognise it better than I could, the black energy that erupted in my head and surged a fury of power through my muscles, ligaments, tendons. I twisted out of his embrace and snapped to my feet, kicked him once, twice, three times to body and head, grabbed the back of his neck and threw him across the floor. He rolled over the broken table and his momentum kept him going, he scrabbled along on hands and knees, lurched up to his feet and staggered against the wall. The Kimber 45 and the Rosary Pea poison were on the floor, at his feet, but we both knew he wouldn’t dishonor himself by taking up the gun. The Abrin phials scattered below his feet, he scooped them as he lunged for the door. He should have taken the gun, he knew I wouldn’t show mercy, he knew he was never getting further than the hall. I didn’t need to think, just leapt through the air like a javelin, hammer kicked him through his gut, saw him fold in two, a loud gasp as he speared along the floor.
It was over then, and we surfaced again as brothers. He sat half upright against the brown door, his weight on his right haunch, right hand torqued to his side. His dark head drooped, gradually sinking low on his chest, until I cradled him in my arms and pulled his face up to mine. He stroked my arm with his left hand, held his right to his stomach, breathing heavy, but not in panic, not in fear. He was still wearing my sweatshirt, the green one with a gold harp and the “Irish Brigade 1860” ing. The soft cotton was sticky and wet above his hand, the emerald green staining darker as we sat in silence. I pulled it up, saw an Abrin phial half buried in his gut, his right hand clutching it tight against his skin. He squirmed under me as I moved to pull the poison out.
“Don’t touch it,” he said. “It’s too late for me. Don’t let any more of this shit escape. Get out of here now, leave me.”
“How quick does this stuff work?” I said.
“Dunno, a few hours, but it doesn’t matter, I told you, there’s no antidote, I’m fucked. It messes with the protein in your cells. Just get out of here before I leak it all over the fucking place, will you?”
He was too heavy to carry on my own, I needed Ryan up here. I moved Ferdia away from the door, then raced down the stairs, out to the street, over to the car. It saw me coming but didn’t move, the long, thick-bodied rat, balanced there on its hind legs and tail, that whisker twitched around the back door of the Ford. The door wasn’t completely closed, as if the seat belt had been caught. I got closer, no sign of Ryan, but the rat was nosing a dark sludge that oozed under the door. I was within stamping distance when the bastard darted under the car, but my eyes were already on Ryan. He was asleep alright, but would never wake from the bullet that drilled his forehead. I opened the door and his arm flopped out, a hole through the green and gold swirl of his rebel tattoo, no shield against that sudden force. Another black hole behind his ear, the other side of his skull sprayed across the back seat and window, and dripping now to feed the rats. His gun was gone, and the money I had pushed into his fist. No ID, he didn’t exist in this country anyway. Belfast Ryan, that’s all I knew about him. Did he have parents at home, a family? Did they cry when he fled to America? At least they knew he would be safe. And he would have been, if my shadow hadn’t crossed the door of Grogan’s Bar. I squeezed Ryan back into the car and slammed the door, then sprinted back up to the apartment. I knew I would see him later, another bit part player in my nightmare.
I called 911, the stupid prick had never heard of Abrin or the Rosary Pea. I sat beside Ferdy and waited. He had recovered from the kicking I gave him, and the stab from the broken phial wasn’t that deep, he was pretty relaxed, upbeat even.
“So where were we going to go when this was finished?” I asked.
“I really liked Istanbul, you know?” he said. “The people are great, real friendly. We could have had it all there, Con, if things had worked out good. Then I guess we would have ended up in Ireland, after a few years. It’s better to go home to die, isn’t it? That’s what my old man always said, anyway.”
He still clamped the broken phial against his body, thought he could dam the poison up in there, but a trickle of blood threaded through his fingers.
“I always was proud of you, Ferdia, I thought you knew that,” I said.
“Yeah, I know, sorry for embarrassing you, man. Some things don’t need to be said out loud, right? I guess all that American false emotion shit just got to me, know what I mean?” he said.
I knew, so we sat there holding hands until we heard the siren outside, and we didn’t need to say anymore about it.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
I was down the fire escape and on the street before the sirens stopped. Two oak-thick detectives scanned Ryan from the sidewalk, I hopped on a bus as it passed, didn’t know where it was going, didn’t care.
I had Ferdy’s cellphone, call history erased, but flicked through the contacts, only five cellphone numbers. No names, just contact one, two, three and four. But contact five did have a name, R & S. That’s what he had called the Iranians, Rostam and Sohrab. Who were the other four contacts? Conroy and Lutterall must be here. The Israelis must be here too. I would follow where these numbers took me, later, but first I needed Rose to tell me what the fuck she was doing.
Off the bus and into Van Cortlandt Park. Keyed Rose’s cellphone number. Ringing, ringing, voicemail. Fuck! I stalled then, on the green grassy slopes of Van Cortlandt with the traffic hurtling north and south, would she see a missed call and phone back to this number? Or was some Israeli killbot homing in on my signal right now? I pulled the battery out of the cellphone, I would try her later.
Kept going until I came out the other side of the Park, the corner of Broadway and Van Cortlandt Park South. Gallogly would still be in bed, either above his bar in Hell’s Kitchen or at home in Park Slope. I only knew the bar number, hoped he hadn’t gone home to his wife last night. Went into a diner, full Irish breakfast $2.99, used the phone at the back. Ringing, but I just knew that bastard wouldn’t be there when I needed him. Six rings, about to forget it, then scowling Eddie sneered down his broken nose.
“Just get him to the fucking phone now, Eddie, ok? Or I swear I’ll break your fucking neck, you ugly bastard!”
Silence then, and I thought maybe Eddie was pouting another “fuck you” moment, but I held on, until Gallogly slapped his thick hairy ear to the receiver.
“Jack? I need you to come and get me. Remember that fight we had with those Dublin kids? That’s where I am. Be here in 30 minutes? Ok, thanks.”
That was another Gallogly escapade from our youth. A bus carrying a Gaelic football team from Dublin, left unattended outside Gaelic Park, the epicentre of all things Irish here in the north Bronx. Gallogly levered the luggage bay and we laughed our balls off throwing their gear all over the road, until somebody tipped them off and about twenty of them fought us all the way back into Van Cortlandt. Anyway, no Israeli or any other fucker listening in would know where I would be waiting.
Forty minutes later, Gallogly swept up West 240th Street in his silver Merc SUV. I watched him slow down going past Gaelic Park, he turned left at Tibbett Avenue, kept left again, then left again into Corlear Avenue and straight back to the Park. I let him perform the rout
ine twice, couldn’t spot anyone following him, so stepped out from my hiding place behind the bushes on his third pass. He slowed down just enough for me to jump in, then screamed off in a turbodiesel roar, nobody behind us, he kicked it through the traffic and hit the Expressway like a sledgehammer. I kept watch behind us. There was no one there, but I could feel all their shadows on my skin, sitting in grinning judgement, waiting for me.
* * *
Gallogly relaxed once we hit Hell’s Kitchen, he owned bits and pieces of property, knew all the right people. He was somebody around here, and liked that everybody knew it, that’s why I needed him. We humped the SUV down 12th Avenue, then into West 44th Street. He had a car wash place beside a vacant lot, with an old red brick warehouse behind it. I opened the bulky padlock and pulled the gates open, the SUV disappeared into the empty warehouse, he revved it up, liked to make plenty of noise, like a dog pissing on a tree.
A metal staircase led up to an office, or maybe it was really a storeroom. A desk, with phone and computer screen, couple of new office chairs. Dozens of boxes stacked along the walls, from floor to ceiling. On the floor, papers ordered into little square mountains. Invoices, customs papers, orders, statements. But some of the mountains had collapsed, and been walked over, so papers found their own resting place, escaped from the plan, too much hassle to sort, so were forgotten about. Everything, office furniture, boxes, papers, was covered in a gray dust, like human skin, that pulsed in little bubble clouds as we spoke.
“You will be safe here, Con. Nobody knows about this place except me,” he said.
And that would have been fine, if I had needed a place to hide, but I was thru hiding, it was time to step up.
“What about those cops you know, Jack? Think they could help us find these two fuckers before tomorrow?” I said.
“Maybe, but I’ve got more than just fucking cops to call on. I can get twenty or thirty of my own guys on the street. If I put a few dollars out there, we can get co-operation from all sorts of other people too, know what I mean? But what about Ferdy? Don’t we need to find him first? Get him out of the way?”
I didn’t tell him.
“I have to speak to Rose about it, Jack. You know where she is?” I said.
“No. She called last week to say she wouldn’t be at work for a couple of days, said something had come up,” he said. “I guessed it was to do with you, something the two of you needed to work out on your own, didn’t want to ask about it. I thought she was supposed to be back last Wednesday, but no, I haven’t been speaking to her, I don’t know where she is. Is anything wrong?”
Something gripped my insides and twisted, red hot and icy cold. So, this was what fear was like, now I understood. Yeah, Gallogly, there was plenty wrong, but I couldn’t fix my head to work out what to do about it. I knew Ferdy wouldn’t have put them in harm’s way, he would die first, but he wasn’t calling the shots. No, if some self anointed defender of the American Way had them as hostages, I would fold and walk away. I was only here at all because I needed to make good for my mistakes in the past, and I would gladly suck up any penance coming my way, but I couldn’t trade them to buy my own redemption. They were my redemption, for Christ’s sake, and all the crap about duty and honor wouldn’t cut it if it meant my own family were in danger. That was a sacrifice too far for this hero, because America is just the total of all those nobody families, just like mine, living nobody lives, so why should we be the ones to take the fall? I breathed my way out of it, blinkered myself, I would be useless to them if I lost control again.
* * *
Gallogly went off to recruit his private task force, I toyed with Ferdy’s cellphone, clicked the battery back in. It buzzed into life, but no missed messages, she hadn’t phoned back. I flicked up the contact numbers, tempted to just call all of them, surrender, beg a deal that let Rose and young Con walk free. The cellphone shook in my hands, I couldn’t do it, literally, something stopped me, maybe instinct, or just the fear of making the wrong decision. I scribbled the numbers down on a scrap of dusty paper and shoved it in my pocket. Almost noon, December 8th. It must be tomorrow, too much weight on my shoulders, I couldn’t do this on my own, took the battery out again.
I fired up the PC on the desk, no passwords, on-line, hit WFUV, 90.7 FM, public radio from Fordham University, Kathleen Biggins with A Thousand Welcomes from the Bronx. Was Artie listening up there? Half an idea started to simmer in my mind, call Artie, get him to act as go-between, cut a deal to save Rose and Con, I would walk away from the whole thing, stop being a problem. He had the contacts, he could work it out. But would he go for it? Would anyone, if they realised the threat, exchange my nobody family for another 9/11? Some sort of bagpipe music from Spain, how did that get here? Browsed through NYDailyNews.com. Government official found with gunshot wounds to the head at his home in Arlington, critical condition, suspected suicide attempt. No name, but sources say victim was due to be charged with serious offences. Lutterall didn’t do it, I knew that for sure. Conroy? Duffin had called it right, I was on my own.
A soul cry from the Bronx now, a young girl from Riverdale, “The road may be tiresome, and hard to tread, and the lights of their city blind you”, never been to Ireland, tearing her heart with an old time famine song. You’ve got it, Kathleen, you just don’t know how much. Heard somebody at the outer doors, pulled the plug on the PC and jumped down the staircase, Gallogly called my name before I could hide. Felt the jolt on my ankle, but it was getting stronger every day.
Three men with him, two NYPD detectives and the seedy grunge with the yellow eyes from the bar. The detectives billboarded the authority that comes with their shields, their 250 pound frames and 15 plus years service apiece. The red faced, Irish looking one was on leave, had been caught up in a shooting in the Bronx in the fall, two black kids dead. The black cop looked like he could punch a hole through that Merc SUV, he was on sick leave, stress. Gallogly led the way up to the office, we had to squeeze in, the pumped up cops colonised the floor, the grunge struggled to stamp his footprint on the narrow ground they left him.
“I’ve told the guys about our problem,” Gallogly said. “They aren’t inclined to believe it, they hear shit like this every other day, but they’ll put the feelers out. If there are any Iranians here that shouldn’t be, we’ll find them.”
The detectives pissed their contempt all over us, but easy money from Gallogly, they would indulge my fairy tale.
“Any idea how many tourists are in Manhattan on any given day this time of year?” the red one said.
“Not too many strapped with a biological dirty bomb,” I said.
The cops glared at me, and that was probably their default attitude, but I knew immediately the fat red one was the sort of guy I would enjoy putting some hurt on, knew he would deserve some payback, he must have been throwing his weight about these streets for years. I liked taking his sort down.
“So what, we roll down on anybody looks like he’s an arab?” the black one said.
If I had already known where they were, I wouldn’t have been standing there hoping these two could perform some magic trick.
“Can’t you access hotel registers, then narrow it down?” Gallogly said.
“Fuck Jack, how much you paying us here? Want us to just throw our shields in the Hudson now, and get it over with?” the red one was laughing, the black one looked at me as if I was diseased.
That day in Rev Walker’s house, when Joannes fixed me up with a wifi laptop, I had skimmed through Today’s Zaman, an English language on-line Turkish newspaper. There was an article I noticed, said the Turkish authorities were on the alert for Iranian Quds Force launching a strike against US targets in Istanbul. Turkish intelligence warned that Quds Force units would pass themselves off as high roller tourists, staying in luxury hotels.
“How many luxury hotels are there within walking distance of the World Trade Centre?” I said.
The cops stopped goofing and gave each other the look. The g
runge was already tapping thru his iPhone.
“Try the names Rostam and Sohrab. They won’t be registered as Iranian, maybe Turkish, or Saudi or from Qatar, or some other friendly country,” I said.
* * *
Thirty minutes later the SUV was crawling the streets around the Trade Centre site, I was in the front with Gallogly, the grunge compressed between two dreadnought detectives. The mix of heavily doused cologne, smoke, body odor and bad breath formed a cloud of primordial testosterone soup trapped in our silver capsule, but they howled when I moved to open the roof hatch. Too cold outside.
We wasted an hour eyeballing tourists from the rest of the world, before the red detective told Gallogly to stop outside a precinct house. The cops strutted across the street to the entrance, the grunge kept tapping messages on his iPhone, Gallogly and I sat in silence.
I was still churning it all through my head, trying to work out what it was I was supposed to do here, but everytime the solution appeared within touching distance my mind would go blank and the whole thing would collapse. I would do whatever was needed, but I needed someone to tell me, give me the direction. When I was a kid, I guess I took direction from Gallogly and Ferdy and all the other outlaws that ran the streets. Maybe the wrong direction, but it didn’t matter, because there was no wrong for us then, everything was ok because we just did whatever we wanted to do. If we wanted to do it, and could do it, then we did it. I guess that’s why the army was so good for me, there was always somebody above, giving directions I didn’t need to question.
The cops came back out, another couple with them, pressed from the same die. They stopped in a line across the street, looking our way, my way. Gallogly and I knew cops, we saw a problem.
“Stay here, Con, I’ll see what’s going on,” he said. “I’m paying these two fuckers enough, they won’t bust my balls, so you just keep cool, ok?”
I shifted over to the driver’s seat, sat the Kimber 45 on my lap, kept my eyes on the cops. They steered Gallogly round to the side of the precinct house, away from all the other cops, then all hell let loose, the red cop and black cop were right up in Gallogly’s face, screaming and waving their hands about. The red one half turned and pointed at me, still roaring and shouting into Gallogly’s ear, I turned the ignition, kept watching. Gallogly was still Gallogly, he gave it all right back to them, his face was the purple I recognised, his forehead shoving back the red cop’s snout, he waved to me to say he had it under control. In the end he shouted them down, they stepped back to huddle with the two new cops, Gallogly came back over to me.