by Delynn Royer
Trixie turned to Sean. “So what’s the plan? Was that your cousin? Are you leaving now, or do we have some time to kill?”
“There’s been a change of plans.”
“What kind of change?” she asked.
Sean snatched her hat from her desk and handed it to her. “Is that invitation to stay at your father’s house still open?”
She took her hat but looked at him quizzically. “Well sure, but I thought—”
“Good. Let’s go.” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice.
She touched his sleeve. “Wait a minute. Us? Does that mean I’m coming along?”
“Yeah.” Sean reached for his coat. “We can’t show up at your father’s door without you.” He looked at Danny. “Where’s your coat, pal?”
Trixie didn’t move. “What’s going on?”
“His coat?” he prodded.
“By Pickles’s desk, but—”
“Pickles?”
“Julius’s secretary.”
“Ah.” Sean went for the coat. He didn’t need to ask the reason behind the nickname. “You too. Let’s go.”
It only took a few seconds for Trixie to grab her coat and purse. She was right on his heels by the time he had Danny’s coat. Sean let her prattle while Danny put it on.
“I don’t get it. Ever since I suggested we use the house on the island, you were against it. There were a hundred reasons why that idea was no good. Now it’s just the thing. Care to explain why?”
“Later, Trix.” He shepherded Danny between desks toward the doors.
Perhaps the shock of seeing Grottano’s photograph was beginning to wear off because Danny piped up. His expression implied he was trying to find his street tough bearings, but a tremor in his voice kept him from pulling it off. “Say, where are we scramming to, anyhow?”
“To Miss Frank’s house in the country.” The boy’s wrinkled brow told Sean this answer offered no comfort. “Just for a short time. I promise.”
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Trixie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Something bad?”
“Depends on how you look at it.” Sean felt the minutes ticking by as he pushed through the city room doors, headed for the elevator, and then punched the down button. The brass dial overhead indicated the elevator was in the lobby. As the arrow began to creep upward Sean remembered that Carter probably had a detective stationed in the lobby. “Stairs?”
Trixie pointed. “That way. Why? What’s wrong with the—?”
“Nothing.” Sean took Danny by the hand and led him down the hallway in the direction Trixie had indicated. “Come on.”
Trixie had no choice but to follow. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
He stopped before a door marked STAIRWAY, dropped Danny’s hand, and took her firmly by the shoulders. “Trix, listen to me. I’ll explain everything later. For now, just do as I say. Understand?”
Maybe there was something in his voice that betrayed the tension in his gut because Trixie fell quiet. She studied his face and comprehension dawned. “Okay.”
“Good girl.” Sean let go of her and urged Danny ahead of them as he opened the door to the stairs.
Thankfully, no one spoke as they took twelve flights down to the ground floor. It left Sean with some necessary time to think. The idea that he’d been so close to taking Danny to meet Carter made his blood run cold. In fact, if Miles Rochester wasn’t such a jealous bastard and hadn’t left his copy of the Examiner behind for Danny to see, Sean and Danny might now be on their way to a death trap.
Their best case scenario was that they had a thirty-minute head start to run in a different direction before Carter began to suspect something was wrong. Their worst case scenario was that Carter’s detective or Grottano himself waited in the lobby or just outside to track their movements when they left.
They couldn’t leave by the front.
They needed another way out.
“Is there a rear exit somewhere, a service entrance?” Sean asked Trixie when they reached the stairwell on the ground floor.
“I don’t know. There’s a coffee shop, though. They might have one.”
Sean opened the door to look out into the common area, but didn’t step out as he surveyed the portion of the lobby within view. The place was busy, but not as busy as he would have preferred. A few business men stood near the elevators, more people passed each other as they moved toward and away from the front revolving doors, and three men chatted near an information desk.
The coffee shop was across from the elevators. He saw no sign of Grottano, but there was an area to the right of the revolving glass doors that he couldn’t see. They would have to take their chances.
“We’ll try the coffee shop,” he said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
As Owen Carter parked his shiny red Nash 48 Sports Touring Car across the street from the six-story Alhambra Hotel, he observed the peeling sign, the dingy windows, and the rusted wrought iron balconies that jutted out from the faded brick face of the building.
It was an old residential hotel, no doubt a fashionable complex back in the day when this part of town would have been a short distance from the 23rd Street theater district. Now it was rundown and verging on disrepair. It offered just the sort of low-rent flat a native, by-the-book cop like Costigan could call home.
Owen turned off the engine and waited, his stomach churning as he stared at the faded hotel sign. There was still time to change his mind, to look the other way, to return to headquarters, and pretend he didn’t know what he knew.
It might be easier than he thought. After all, what was one little street kid in the grand scheme of things? They were a dime a dozen, some not able to speak English, swarming the streets of every big city—begging for food and money, shop-lifting, picking pockets and growing up to be thugs.
Right?
“Right,” he said to himself.
Wrong. He knew better. Owen was no saint, but he was no murderer of children.
A Model T rumbled past, snapping him out of his ruminations long enough to glance up and down the street to be sure he hadn’t been followed. He’d been careful, making a point of telling Lou that he’d been up all night with a nagging toothache. That would explain his preoccupation as well as the sleep-deprived shadows under his eyes. Later, a dental appointment was the perfect excuse to leave headquarters in the middle of the day.
Owen glanced at his watch, told himself to relax. No one had reason to follow him. After all, he’d always known how to play these games. He had no reservations about the morality of taking graft or looking the other way from time to time. Why should he care if one crook wanted to bump off another or if the owner of a speak wanted to make a buck serving a willing public?
Still, everything in moderation. He was careful to keep his official record pristine. He curried favor with the D.A., donated generously to the Police Benevolent Society, and cast his lot with the administration in power. He did what he was told and didn’t ask questions.
This strategy had worked like a charm, greasing the wheels of promotion while still assuring him enough side income to afford the small luxuries he enjoyed. Now though, it all threatened to come crashing down because of one kid.
Owen had known John Murphy was set up, but he didn’t know by whom or why. It didn’t matter. His job was to wrap the case up quick before the feds could get a foothold. This was to be a gold star for the city, not the feds, and that was fine with him. It was a rare opportunity to close a high-profile case, and it had seemed almost too easy.
At least, until Costigan had shown up yesterday to tell him he’d found an eyewitness.
This was an unfortunate development, but it wasn’t irretrievable. The kid could be taken care of, spirited away to Chicago, put i
nto an orphanage or adopted out. That’s what Owen had proposed, and the idea was accepted.
Owen was told to discontinue surveillance of Trixie Frank’s rooming house. The boy would be taken the following morning as soon as Miss Frank departed for work. Costigan’s gorilla would be put out of commission, and the building would be left empty but for the elderly landlady and the boy.
Owen had believed this at first, had wanted fervently to believe it, but for the first time, he didn’t do as he was told. He didn’t call off his detective, an officer who was diligent about taking down license plate numbers.
He’d learned that morning, after Murphy’s funeral, that it was his own partner Lou who had shown up at the apartment house bright and early only to be foiled by the unexpected decision by Trixie Frank to take the boy with her into the city. Grottano had been left to follow in his patrol car as the girl and the kid were driven by Costigan’s goon through a populated neighborhood to board a crowded train.
After Grottano had returned to headquarters, Owen had felt his partner watching him suspiciously. The man could be an ogre but he was no fool. He’d already picked up on Owen’s anxiety, and so Owen had asked him then, straight out, what his plan was for Danny O’Roarke. Lou had assured him the boy would be fine, but Owen knew Lou was a cold fish.
The boy would not be fine.
A movement in his rear view mirror caught Owen’s eye, and he tensed, focusing on the image of a man who had just turned the corner less than half a block back. His broad shoulders were hunched and his hands were shoved deep in his coat pockets. The man was still too far away to see his face, but the dark trench coat and fedora looked familiar. Costigan.
Owen frowned. He’d expected Sean to arrive by taxi. And where was the boy?
Owen watched as the man came nearer, but it was impossible to see his face as the brim of his hat shielded his features. Something else was off too, something Owen couldn’t put his finger on. It wasn’t until the man was almost on top of Owen’s car that he realized what it was. The man’s gait. It was a gait Owen recognized too late. The other man leaned down to peer in the open passenger side window, and Owen’s heart shot into his throat.
“Hey, Lou.”
“Thought you was going to the dentist,” Grottano said.
“Yeah, I was, but I got a call from Costigan. He said he wanted to meet here. Something about the kid. I thought I’d better see about it.”
Grottano’s eyes were so dark, they looked black. Owen forced himself to hold that flat gaze. He managed a smile. “So what’re you doing here? Are you following me?”
Grottano glanced up the street, looked back at Owen. “Matter of fact I am. You worry too much. You know that?”
“Someone’s got to.”
Grottano indicated the Alhambra across the street with a lift of his chin. “That his place?”
“Yeah.” Despite the cold, Owen started to sweat.
Grottano bared his teeth in imitation of a smile. “This ain’t easy, partner.”
Lou’s hands were still out of sight, most likely buried in his coat pockets. Owen thought about his own service revolver tucked securely in its holster under his coat, about how long it would take him to get a hand on it. Too long.
“Lou.” He lifted a hand. “Wait. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but—”
When Lou moved, it was fast and, despite what he said, apparently easy enough because, in the split second it took Owen to fumble for the driver’s side door lever, to even think of trying to get away, he found himself staring down the bottomless black barrel of his partner’s .38 caliber Colt revolver.
Chapter Eighteen
Danny O’Roarke didn’t scare easily, but when Sean urged him out of the taxi cab onto the busy sidewalk in front of the colossal pink granite structure called Pennsylvania Station, his heart started to pound and he went swimmy in the head.
He was not afraid of trains, no, not at all. In fact, he liked riding the subway and took pride in his ability to navigate Manhattan like a grown-up, but in all his travels, he had purposely steered clear of this particular station.
“Come on, kiddo, what’s the matter?” Trixie asked as Sean paid the cab driver and she pulled him by the hand toward the row of towering stone columns that haunted his dreams. Danny acquiesced to her tugging, but reluctantly. “It’s just a train station, Danny. We won’t let you get lost.”
It wasn’t getting lost that Danny was worried about.
He knew more than Trixie did what they were really running from—the dark man from the park—and so he dutifully put one foot in front of the other, but he didn’t have to like it. He squeezed his eyes shut as they passed through the carriageway to the Long Island Railroad, where he listened carefully as Sean bought tickets on the Main Line to Long Island City. One thing Danny had learned well was to pay attention to landmarks and place names, tucking each away like a bread crumb.
It was less than a half hour later when they boarded their train. Danny had said little. He was awash in the memories he had of this place, of gripping his small black suitcase in one hand and his little sister’s hand in the other, of thunderous voices that echoed from loudspeakers all around them as the nuns had ushered their group through the swarming terminal.
Danny had trusted the nuns when they’d told him that he and Leah were going to a wonderful new home in the country. He had trusted them because they were nice, but what they’d told him wasn’t true. He hadn’t gone to a wonderful home, and what they hadn’t told him was worse—that Leah would be taken away.
Here he was again, back in this terrible place, only this time he was with two other adults, both of whom he trusted because they’d been nice to him. Were they lying too?
Danny didn’t know what to think and so he thought nothing until he found himself sitting on a cushioned seat between Sean and Trixie, watching as other passengers passed in the aisle. As the moment the train would depart crept nearer, he had to fight a compulsion to run.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Danny.” Trixie’s voice next to his ear was sympathetic, warm as a blanket, and Danny was reminded of his mother’s voice.
“Nothing.”
“Are you hungry? Gee, I’m hungry. Once this old bucket gets moving, we’ll see about getting some peanuts. Not too much though. When we get to where we’re going, we’ll get some dinner. Why, there’ll be more food at Daddy’s house than you can shake a stick at.”
She kept talking, mostly about food and someone named Cook, about ham and cheese sandwiches slathered in butter and mustard, about apple dumplings that swam in bowls of cinnamon and warm cream. Danny’s stomach rumbled, and he was distracted long enough to stay in his seat until the heavy doors crashed closed and the train lurched forward.
* * *
After they stepped off the train in Long Island City, Sean led Trixie and Danny to the ticket counter to determine the next leg of their journey. As they waited in line, Sean played again over the facts of the case and still had a hard time believing he’d been so wrong about Carter.
When they reached the ticket counter, Trixie suggested they take the Oyster Bay Branch from Mineola. They’d just missed the last connection, so there would be a short wait. Sean ordered their tickets, asked the clerk where the nearest coin phone was, then led their trio to a bench along a wall to await their next train.
Before taking a seat, Trixie gave Sean a pointed look that made it clear that, although she’d kept her questions to herself for Danny’s sake, she had no intention of letting him get away without a full explanation. “So who do you need to call?”
“Moe Rothstein.”
Her eyes narrowed as if she suspected him of lying, which he was not. “What’s Mr. Rothstein got to do with any of this?”
“Nothing. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Sean expecte
d a protest, could see it in her eyes, but then she stifled it with an arched eyebrow that said, More later. “Fine.”
Trixie sat, flipped open the short story magazine she’d bought on the train, and gave Danny her attention. “It looks like we’ll be here for a while, so we might as well make the best of it. Where were we?”
As Sean left them, it was just as she resumed reading an amusing story called “Pigs Is Pigs.” While Trixie’s penchant for chatter had annoyed him in the past, he was grateful for it today. Her steady stream of talk had a calming effect on the boy.
Sean found a coin telephone booth, which, if he didn’t close the door, allowed a clear line of sight to the benches where Trixie and Danny sat. When they’d left the McClintock Building, he was sure they hadn’t been followed—and he had no reason to believe they were being watched now—but he doubted he’d be able to relax entirely until Grottano and Carter were safely locked up in the Tombs.
The phone was new, sporting a numbered dial, and so he dropped a nickel in the slot, waited for a tone, and dialed Mary Margaret’s number. The receiver on the other end picked up and Sean was glad to hear it was Fred rather than Mary Margaret. Not pulling any punches, he explained that he would not be bringing Danny.
“I think you’re safe, but maybe you and the family should spend a few days out of town Go visit Aunt Maureen.”
Fred was no proud fool, especially when it came to looking out for his family. Sean knew he was capable of protecting his own. Sean promised to get in touch again soon and hung up. Next, he rang up the Alhambra.
While he waited for Moe to pick up, he scanned the faces of travelers as they passed through the busy Long Island City station. At each stop they made, he would continue to keep an eye out for the faces that didn’t change, for the dwindling number of travelers who happened to be taking the same route they were from Manhattan to Queens and then north.
“Alhambra Hotel.” Moe’s raspy voice came to him from the other side of the East River. The connection was full of static.