“You sound like you know a lot about him,” said Georgia.
“He’s an extortionist from way back,” said Carter. “He used to run with the Westies. Y’all remember the Westies, don’t you?”
“The Irish street gang based in Hell’s Kitchen,” said Georgia.
“Based in Hell’s Kitchen, yes. But they operated all over the city. They were subcontractors—they offered muscle to just about anybody who was paying—the Mafia, the Colombians, the Tong down in Chinatown. And they were ruthless. You found an abandoned refrigerator in Hell’s Kitchen, the contents were always the same: body parts, courtesy of Big Mike. That’s why they call him Freezer. That’s where his victims always ended up.”
“But I thought the Westies were finished,” said Georgia. “Aren’t most of those guys dead or in prison?”
“Uh-huh,” said Carter. “I put a couple of them there myself—ruthless brutes, all of ’em. But Freezer was different. Smarter. Calmer. More polished. The only time he ever did in the joint was for a nickel-and-dime robbery when he was, maybe, nineteen. Man was like a polecat in the woods. You could smell him, but you couldn’t catch him.”
Georgia smiled. The guys at Manhattan base were always razzing Carter for his down-home expressions. Georgia thought they were charming, and a whole lot more creative than the steady diet of four-letter words she heard the rest of the time.
“Do you know where to find him?”
“I know where to look,” said Carter. “These Irish guys never go far from the neighborhood.”
Traffic crawled north along the West Side Drive as it followed the contours of the Hudson River. At West Eighteenth Street, Georgia noticed a group of about fifty protesters in front of a chain-link fence by one of the piers. They were holding up posters with skulls and crossbones on them. Stop the Dalcor Plant read one poster. Another read Butadiene will kill our children. Georgia squinted past them to a spanking new two-story glass building with some kind of storage tank in front.
“I haven’t been following the papers on this one,” she admitted. “What are they protesting? The building looks a hell of a lot better than that abandoned marine terminal it replaced.”
“It’s not the building, it’s what’s in it,” said Carter. “Dalcor is a big chemical manufacturer. The city paid a lot of money to lure them here. With all that’s happened in New York over the past few years, a lot of businesses have pulled out—especially the last of the firms that relied on unskilled labor. Dalcor agreed to come in and set up a manufacturing plant.”
“I would think people would be in favor of jobs and some development on the waterfront.”
“Problem is,” said Carter, “Dalcor uses some pretty toxic chemicals. The one those posters are referring to, butadiene, is not only flammable, it’s supposed to be cancerous. This stuff gets into the air or the water, it could stick around for a long time.”
Georgia looked around at the neighborhood. A new fifteen-story apartment building had just gone up across the street. Down the block, she could see the long, flat roof of a three-story public elementary school.
“I wouldn’t want this so close to my home or Richie’s school, either,” said Georgia. “But I guess these people don’t have a choice. It’s here now.”
Carter nodded to the protesters. “I guess no one told them the battle’s over.”
At Fiftieth Street, Carter turned off the West Side Drive into an area of mid-Manhattan formally known as “Clinton,” but better known as “Hell’s Kitchen.” Though Times Square, to the southeast, had undergone a major face-lift over the last decade, Hell’s Kitchen was still primarily a drab stretch of tenements. Laundromats, garages and convenience stores. Georgia had gotten to know the neighborhood well over the past eight months.
“Mac lives two blocks north of here,” she said brightly.
“It’s a dump,” said Carter. Georgia gave him a sharp look but he didn’t back down. “I worked ’round here when our old fire marshal’s base was in the neighborhood. Believe me, I know. It’s a dump.”
“Would you like Mac any better if he lived on Park Avenue?”
“Did I say anything about Mac?” he shot back. “I’m talking about the neighborhood.”
Georgia gave him a sour look and stared out the window. Though Carter never came right out and said it, he didn’t like Supervising Fire Marshal Mac Marenko—and he especially didn’t like him dating Georgia. Most days, she consoled herself that Carter’s fatherly disapproval of Mac was sort of touching, given that her own father had never lived to see her to womanhood. But not today. Today, he was hitting a little too close to the bone.
“The man’s technically our boss,” Carter continued. “He earns maybe twenty grand more than we do a year. He could do better.”
“Mac’s got child support to pay,” said Georgia. “And a mortgage on Long Island. He’s working two jobs right now just to have a little spare cash for the holidays.”
“Exactly,” said Carter. He turned his face from the wheel and looked at her. “So where do you figure into all of this?”
Georgia hunkered down in her seat without looking at him. “I figure in just fine.”
Carter turned onto Ninth Avenue and parked in front of a narrow, three-story building with a fire escape running down the front and a bar named Kelly’s on the first floor. There was a shamrock between the y and the s instead of an apostrophe. The windows were dark and the door looked scuffed and unwelcoming. Georgia put a hand on Carter’s arm.
“Randy, maybe you shouldn’t go in there. I mean, I know you worked in the area, but these places—they’re very rough and shanty Irish, and you’re…well…”
He smiled. “I’m black. And they don’t take to black folk—is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah.”
“Relax, girl. Bobby and I go way back. I used to buy lunch here every day when I worked around the corner. I even broke up a fight in here once.” He nodded to the windows. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but they’ve got the best corned beef and cabbage in the city. And talk about cheap? I think the whole plate with coffee and home fries set me back maybe three-fifty.”
It was only ten-thirty in the morning, and from the looks of it, Kelly’s hadn’t yet officially opened up. Even inside, the place wasn’t much to look at: a faded oak bar, a few booths with ripped red PVC cushions, an aging pool table in the back long overdue to be refelted. On the wall over the bar were black-and-white photos of men with prizefighters’ faces—all broken noses and scars. Some of the pictures had silver frames. Most had black.
“Those guys don’t look like celebrities,” said Georgia.
“They’re celebrities, all right—inside the neighborhood,” said Carter. “All those guys are Westies. The ones in the black frames are dead.”
An enormous woman in a dirty white apron came out of the kitchen. Her hard, lined face broke into a smile when she saw Carter.
“I don’t believe my eyes,” she said in a thick Irish brogue. When she smiled, one of her front teeth gleamed with gold. “They can’t kill us old-timers off, can they, Carter? We just keep going till the good Lord tell us it’s time.”
“Ah, maybe you, Bobby, but I’m getting a creak in these old bones.”
Georgia shot Carter a dirty look. She didn’t like it when he talked about retiring, however obliquely.
“This here’s Roberta Kelly,” said Carter. “Best cook in all of New York, and that includes all those high-falutin’ joints downtown.”
“Ach…” The woman punched Carter playfully in the arm, and he beamed. Georgia frowned. Two years she’d worked with the man, and she wouldn’t have felt comfortable chucking him like that.
“I know why you’re sweet-talkin’ me, Randy Carter. ’Cause you want me to fix you my famous shepherd’s pie even though it ain’t on the menu. My old fingers can’t do the crust no more.”
“We’ll eat anything you care to make us, Roberta.”
“How ’bout two corned beef
sandwiches?”
“My favorite.”
Bobby brought out two white bread rolls and butter. The rolls looked soft and doughy—too doughy for corned beef. Bobby went to slap some butter on Georgia’s roll. Georgia stopped her.
“No butter on mine, please. Mustard’s all I need.” Corned beef, to Georgia’s way of thinking, should be served up in a kosher deli on Jewish rye bread with plenty of mustard. She might have been born Irish, but somewhere along the line her stomach converted.
Bobby frowned at Georgia. She had a smoker’s face—deep lines and leathery skin. Her hair, gray at the roots, was the color of red cedar mulch at the tips. She’d probably been a redhead when she was young.
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Georgia. Georgia Skeehan.”
“Skeehan, eh?” Bobby narrowed her gaze at Georgia. It was not a friendly look at all. “Unusual Irish name.”
“People always mistake it for ‘Sheehan,’” Georgia told her, trying to be friendly. I should’ve kept my friggin’ mouth shut and lived with the butter, she thought. “When my dad joined the FDNY, there was a Sheehan in his probie class and—”
“Your father was a firefighter?”
“Uh-huh.” Georgia shot a puzzled look at Carter. He seemed equally perplexed. Firefighting was often a family calling. It wasn’t uncommon for firefighters to have had fathers—even grandfathers—on the job. Bobby turned her scrutiny to Carter.
“You ever talk to Sully these days?” she asked him.
“Not since he retired,” said Carter. “How’s he doing?”
“Still lives in the neighborhood. Comes in for a pint at least twice a week,” said Bobby. “You should talk to him.”
“Who’s Sully?” asked Georgia.
“Jamie Sullivan,” said Carter. “Luckiest sonofagun ever to walk the face of the earth. Went to Vietnam and took a thimbleful of buckshot, so they sent him home. Rest of his platoon got wiped out. Joined the fire department, learned to drive the engine and took a wrong turn one night on his way to a gas leak at an empty warehouse. The captain was ready to give him charges. Turns out those five extra minutes spared the entire company. The warehouse blew up before they arrived.”
“Was he ever a fire marshal?” asked Georgia.
“For a couple of years,” said Carter. “Out in Queens with my old partner, Paul Brophy, before Broph transferred to Manhattan. But Sully went back to firefighting after that. He didn’t like wearing a tie and carrying a gun.”
“Where is he now?”
“Retired,” said Bobby. She laughed, the earlier incident seemingly forgotten. “Bought his first lottery ticket the day he retired and hit the jackpot. A cool million. I don’t know what he did with the money ’cause he still lives on West Forty-eighth off Eleventh Avenue. But he goes to Florida every January. I’m always telling Sully to rub some of that luck off on me.”
“How y’all holding up here?” Carter asked her.
“Ach, can’t complain,” said Bobby. “Terry, my son, helps out now and then, but I been thinkin’ of selling the place, truth be told. Marty’s been gone three years now, God rest his soul.”
“Seems like only yesterday,” said Carter.
“No truer words were spoke,” said Bobby. “It’s not the same ’round here no more. Too many ghosts. More than a body can take.”
“Most of the old gang are dead now, I guess,” said Carter.
“Aye,” said Bobby. “And the yuppies don’t come by except on Saint Patrick’s. And they can’t hold their liquor like the regulars.”
“But the back room—y’all still use it, right? I mean, some of the old gang’s still around.”
Bobby sliced the corned beef sandwiches in half without answering. Georgia thought perhaps she hadn’t heard the question. Then, she noticed that the woman’s hands seemed a little less steady with the knife.
“I won’t have ’em no more,” she said finally. “Not since Cullen…” Her voice trailed off.
“I understand,” said Carter. “But you know where we can find ’em, right? None of them could live long without your corned beef.”
Bobby stopped cutting and wagged her knife at him. “You’re a charmer, Carter. You’ve got blarney somewhere inside that black skin of yours. But you can’t play me like a fiddle. I’ve been in business as long as I have because I know when to keep my mouth shut.”
“Roberta, please—help us.” Carter’s voice was soft and serious now. Even Bobby recognized the difference. “We’ve got a bad situation here and we need to talk to Freezer—”
“Don’t say that name.” She wiped her knife on her dirty apron without meeting his gaze. “The last time I heard that name was the day Cullen died.”
Carter leaned across the counter as if to comfort her. His hand hovered in midair, then dropped to the scarred oak countertop. Bobby lifted her gaze now and a look passed between them. Georgia could see something intensely painful in that look.
“I’m sorry,” Carter said softly. “I’ve got no right…” He nodded to Georgia. “I think we should go.”
They slid off their stools. The only sound in the empty bar was the rip of two sheets of waxed paper being torn from a roll. Bobby wrapped up the sandwiches, then slapped them on the bar counter.
“He keeps a place near your old stomping ground—”
“The old Manhattan base?” asked Carter. “On Fifty-second Street, off the West Side Drive? I thought the city converted it into a stable for carriage horses.”
“They did. Freezer’s got a place right next door. Owns the whole building. Not much to look at from the outside, but I hear it’s right fancy on the in.”
Bobby stuffed the sandwiches in a paper bag and handed them to Carter. “No charge.”
He took out his wallet and slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the counter anyway. “Now y’all stop that, Bobby, or my partner’s gonna think you’ve been bribing me all these years.”
Bobby smiled, but it was a sad smile this time—the lips never parted. “Take care of yourself, Carter. There ain’t a lot of us old bodies around anymore.”
6
McLaughlin lived in a three-story brick warehouse that looked quite ordinary from the street. All the windows were small and dark and covered over in heavy blinds. The front door was brown-painted steel. A small driveway sloped down to a garage door. It shared a common wall with the old Manhattan fire investigation base, which was now a stable. The smell of horse manure lingered in the air. Not the best place to wolf down Bobby Kelly’s sandwiches, but then again, Georgia would have preferred a kosher deli anyway.
“What was all that stuff back there about some guy named Cullen?” Georgia asked Carter.
“Long story,” Carter replied.
“Start now, finish later.”
Carter flopped down the last quarter of his sandwich in the waxed paper and stuffed it into the brown paper bag. “Cullen Thomas was Bobby’s kid brother. He was a little worm of a guy—and pretty timid when he was sober. Problem was, he wasn’t sober much. All his offenses were petty offenses, but they started piling up. By the time he got into a drunken knife fight two years ago, he was looking at hard time. Bobby asked me what I could do to keep him out of prison. He would’ve fared badly in prison.”
“I don’t remember any of this,” said Georgia.
“You wouldn’t,” said Carter. “It all happened right before we teamed up. Anyway, Cullen was looking to bargain. He told me if I could get the fight knocked down to a misdemeanor, he’d give me eyewitness details about a fatal fire that had been labeled an accident but wasn’t.”
“He asked you to bargain with the district attorney? On a case that wasn’t even FDNY jurisdiction? I’ll bet the D.A. wouldn’t even speak to you,” said Georgia.
“Oh, he spoke to me, all right,” said Carter. “’Cause the torch Cullen Thomas was willing to dime was somebody we all wanted to take down—Michael McLaughlin.”
“What happened?”
&nbs
p; “The D.A.’s office sent an investigator to talk to Cullen. I never learned the details—that the police did claim jurisdiction on. But soon afterward, the charges against Cullen were bargained down and he walked. I kept waiting for the PD to slap the cuffs on Freezer. But a couple of months went by and nothing happened. Bobby said Cullen started flashing a lot of cash. I didn’t think Freezer would pay him off, but you never know. It sure looked like somebody did. Then one day, Bobby called me in a panic. She said Cullen had come into the bar, very drunk, talking about how it was cheaper to kill him than to pay him off. The police found him early the next morning in back of an SRO. The medical examiner’s office labeled it a jump suicide.”
“The cops must have taken another look at McLaughlin, then,” said Georgia.
“I pressed them to—even asked a couple of my friends in the PD to find the interview Cullen gave to the D.A. and send me a copy. Nobody could ever find it. With Cullen gone, the case died. Bobby was devastated. I’ve always blamed myself. If I hadn’t set the thing in motion, Cullen would probably be alive today.”
“You couldn’t have known,” said Georgia. “I’m sure Bobby realizes that.”
Carter twisted his brown paper lunch bag until it looked like a corkscrew. There was an edge to his eyes.
“I want to nail Michael McLaughlin, girl. I’ve never wanted to nail anyone as much in my life.”
“What makes you think he’ll speak to us?”
“Ego, for one thing,” said Carter. “He thinks all us fire marshals are one step removed from meter maids. We’re not real cops to him.”
Georgia and Carter got out of the car and walked across the street. Georgia rang the buzzer. She noticed a closed circuit camera pointed at the stoop. A husky voice grunted from inside.
“What’s your business?”
Georgia held her shield to the camera. “Fire Department, Mr. McLaughlin.” Fire Department sounded less threatening than fire marshals. She and Carter always used “Department” around skittish witnesses and suspects. “We’d like to come in and talk to you.”
Fireplay Page 4