The Undertaker

by William Brown

Billingham frowned. “Tony Grigiatto, “Tony G,” a button man for Rico.”

  “He was waiting for us in the alley last night in Boston with a gun and a silencer. They had a whole crew up there and that means Rico Patillo is working for Tinkerton.”

  “No, Mister Talbott,” Billingham shook his head sadly. “You have that backwards, it means that Tinkerton is working for Rico Patillo. As I said, this is all about power and if you do have those computer files, you should tread very, very softly.” He started to turn away and then he looked back and paused. “But, if you don't mind my asking a personal question, why are you doing all this?”

  “Because I want off the merry-go-round. I want us both off,” I pointed across the street. “They won't leave us alone, so I'm going to bring them down.”

  “You? You are going to “bring them down?” Billingham smiled, amused by the naiveté of my answer. He took a deep drag on the cigar and tipped his head up, exhaling a thick cloud of cigar smoke. It hung around his head under the umbrella in the damp air. “Then I wish you good luck, Mister Talbott,” he said. “We'll both need it.”

  Billingham had just tipped his umbrella to the east and turned away again, when I heard a loud, painful grunt come out of him. His eyes bulged and he lurched forward as if he had been punched in the back. He staggered forward with a puzzled expression as the blow drove him to his knees. He dropped his umbrella and toppled into me. As thick and bulky as he was, the best I could do was to catch him and slow his fall, lowering him to the sidewalk in front of me. I knew immediately that he had been shot in the back. He was lying on his side looking up at me, wide-eyed, trying to breathe.

  I ran my hand across his back. I felt a jagged tear in the back of his coat, between the shoulder blade and his spine, but I felt nothing wet. I pulled my hand away. No blood? I put my hand back and felt around in the tear until I found something small and hard. I pulled it out and found myself looking at a spent bullet. That was when I realized he was wearing a bulletproof vest under the top coat. The bullet hadn't penetrated, but might have broken a few ribs as it slammed into him, flattened, and knocked the wind out of him.

  “A goddamned Kevlar vest, Charley?” I said. “You gotta be kidding.”

  “Like I said.” He wheezed painfully. “In this city, one can never be too careful.”

  I turned and tried to determine where the shot came from, but I couldn't tell. Suddenly another bullet zipped past my head and grazed the concrete sidewalk behind me, kicking up chips and sparks. From the way it ricocheted, it must have come from the north, and high above. I looked around the nearly-empty park, but there was no one within several hundred feet of us who could possibly have gotten off a shot like that, much less two. They must be using a rifle with a silencer, shooting from one of the rooftops.

  Billingham's eyes were wide open. He clutched my arm and tried to pull himself up, but I pushed him back down. I propped our two umbrellas out in front of him, screening both of us from view to the north and east where the shots must have come from.

  “Stay down!” I told him as I crouched behind the umbrella too. The thin nylon would never stop a bullet, but what the gunman couldn't see, he wasn't likely to hit.

  Billingham's two guards had been facing away from us, and it wasn't until the second bullet skipped off the pavement that they also realized something was wrong. They dropped into defensive stances with their guns out scanning the side streets.

  “No, up north,” I screamed at them, wanting to make sure they knew it wasn't me who shot their boss. “It must be a rifle, up on one of the roofs.” They both nodded.

  “Thank you,” Billingham pulled me to him and whispered. “Thank you.”

  “Track down that stuff, Charley,” I told him as I scanned the park again. I was already on the “10 Most Wanted List” in the Post Office, so sticking around the park would not do me any good. Neither would getting shot in some noble gesture to protect Charley Billingham, so I took off running west, zigzagging through the trees.

  Harvey ran over and plucked Billingham off the sidewalk, threw him over his shoulder as if he were a rag doll, and then sprinted south into the trees. The other guard trailed behind, watching the roofs, waiting to return fire, but there wasn't any.

  Billingham had it all wrong; he was so intent on foiling unwanted listeners that he set himself up for a bullet. While we strolled around the small park shielded from view by the heavy overhead cover, the rifleman had found himself a good firing position. He watched and waited and when we looped back through the park and came back into the open, he had a clear shot.

  I had spent enough time on the rifle range at Fort Riley, Kansas to know that a rifle shot from almost any distance was difficult in the drizzly fog and half-light of the late afternoon. Add in the thick tree canopy and the fact the closest rooftops had to be at least 500 yards away, and this guy was good. If Charley hadn't been wearing the vest, he'd be dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  In the backseat of Goutams’ magic carpet…

  I ran west through the trees doing my best UCLA tailback impersonation, cutting left, cutting right, blazing my way through the USC defense. Overhead, the leaves, the big branches, and the misty rain did the rest. Up ahead I saw Sandy. We made eye contact and I continued running through the grass and trees in case they had other shooters stationed around the park. But before I was halfway to MacDougal Street, I knew I was out of range and out of danger. The farther away I got from the arch though, the clearer it became that the gunman was aiming for Billingham, not for me.

  This was Rico Patillo's handiwork again. It was unlikely anyone knew I was here. After Boston, if they thought I was anywhere around here, they wouldn't have used a long gun, they would have surrounded the park with an army, because Charley was right. They wanted those flash drives and they needed me alive to get them. It wasn't the same for Charley. Maybe his TV time in front of the Hardin Commission spooked Rico and he wanted to make sure the lawyer never did talk. Maybe Rico wasn't taking any chances. When Jimmy finally did get out of Marion, it would be in a hearse. And the simplest solution to all those problems was to take Charley out, now.

  Sandy's path and mine converged at the corner on MacDougal Street. I grabbed her hand and we ran up Fourth without breaking stride until we were two blocks west of the park. That was where I stopped and pulled her into a doorway to catch my breath.

  “What happened back there?” she panted along with me.

  “Somebody took a shot at Billingham.”

  She wrapped her arms around me. “I was so afraid. You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Not as much as it scared the hell out of Charley!”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah. He was hit in the back by a sniper with a rifle, somebody up on one of the roofs. But the fat bastard was wearing a bulletproof vest, if you can believe it.”

  “Has he got two more?” she asked.

  “No, but he's got our umbrella.” I looked down at her, but she didn't find that very funny. “The bullet knocked him down and he probably peed in his pants, but he'll be okay. He thinks I saved his life and that's even better. He owes me now.”

  “So they weren't shooting at you?”

  “I don't think so. I think they were after him. So, let's get out of here.” I took her arm and we walked quickly toward Sixth Avenue, looking to all the world like two shadowy city stick figures heading home from work.

  “What did he say?”

  “This whole thing is about Panozzo's books, those damned flash drives. Tinkerton, Rico Patillo, Gino, Billingham, and even your pal Hardin have all been looking for them, because Billingham says there's a lot more on them than we think. They tie in all the other east coast families and they're dynamite, add in the payoff lists and they are raw power.”

  “And he had no idea they were in your pocket, only a few feet away?”

  “Maybe, but it seems I'm the rock everybody wants to turn over now.”

  “So what are we going
to do now?”

  “See Hardin. He's our last chance.”

  We reached Sixth Avenue and saw a sign for the subway. Unfortunately, there were two battered, New York City Transit Authority Police cars parked on the sidewalk in front of the entrance with their doors hanging open and light bars flashing. I put my arm around Sandy and we gave them a wide berth. Three exasperated white Transit cops in torn and disheveled blue uniforms were wrestling a huge and very angry black woman up the stairs. She must have weighed three hundred pounds, and she was wearing a short-short, orange, patent-leather mini-skirt, a tube-top that looked like she had been shoplifting basketballs from a sporting goods store, and a pair of chrome handcuffs. Kicking, cussing, and spitting, she was a load, as the two Transit cops pushed her up the last few stairs, dragged her over to one of the cars, and jammed her into the back seat.

  One look told me the transit cops were far too occupied to notice two lovers hurrying to the subway. We made a hard right and hurried down the wet, concrete stairs to the station below. I slid a five-dollar bill under the ticket window, dropped two tokens into the coin box, and we scampered through the turnstile, taking the stairs two at a time to the northbound tracks. It was 5:40. The rush hour crowd filled the dimly lit cavern. I found a spot where I could put my back against the wall, pull Sandy up against me, and try to blend in. Fortunately, it wasn't long before a single, white headlight appeared down the track and we heard the distant rumble of an in-coming train. The sound grew louder and louder until the train burst from the tunnel and braked to a halt in front of us. We joined the surge forward and with a shove here and a wiggle there, we pushed our way inside the car. The only people who squeezed in after us were three college students and a couple of gray-haired housewives toting shopping bags. No suits. No sunglasses. No lawyers with Gucci shoes and Florida tans. As quick as it stopped, the car started up with a jolt. I grabbed a silver pole and Sandy grabbed me, wrapping her arms around my waist.

  “That had better be your hands on my buns back there,” I whispered into the top of her head.

  “I certainly hope so,” she looked up and gave me a forced smile.

  At Penn Station, half the crowd got off and we let the tide carry us out onto the platform. I peeled off into an eddy as the doors closed and train rolled away down the tunnel. I looked around the narrow platform, but we were the only ones left who had gotten off. The others had disappeared up the escalator. I pulled Sandy close and held her very tight. Billingham was right. She was in a lot of danger and I had put her there.

  “Hey. That's me you're crushing.”

  “I know.” I held her like that for a good five minutes.

  “When I get crazy mood swings, I can always blame it on PMS,” she muttered into my chest. “What's your excuse?”

  Fortunately, a northbound local finally arrived and I didn't have to answer. We rode it up to Forty-Second Street and got off for keeps this time. If Manhattan was a zoo, then Times Square between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, when the nearby theaters had their curtain calls, was the monkey cage. That's where Broadway, Forty-fifth Street, and Seventh Avenue cross, opening up a wide, exciting space full of speeding cabs, ten-story neon billboards, buses, theater marquees, flashing lights, movie houses, discount electronic stores, hustlers, street preachers, pimps, hookers, the early theater crowd, vendors, bums, and every nut case the city has to offer. And a lovely, big crowd to get lost in.

  We walked north on Broadway. When we passed the first brightly lit electronics store, Sandy pulled me over to the window. It offered everything from radios and camcorders to boom boxes, watches, pens, X-rated videos, and cameras. “You owe me something, remember?” She tapped her finger on the glass by the display of electronic thirty-five millimeter cameras. “Something you broke when you tossed me behind those garbage cans in Boston?”

  “A new camera, huh?”

  “Not just a new camera, Sandy wants one of those!” She pointed again. “A Pentax with a Vivitar 20 x 200 zoom lens. And it's going to run you about five hundred bucks before I'm done.”

  “If it makes you happy, five hundred is no problem.”

  “It'll take a lot more than that, but I'll start with the camera.” She looked in through the store windows and checked out the smug, hard-eyed, male Arab clerks standing behind the counters. “When we get inside, Talbott, you just stand there, look pretty, and keep your mouth shut. Got that?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” I said, thinking any price would be worth it if it got this crazy woman off my back over the camera.

  “'Cause Sandy's gonna give those turkeys a serious butt-whippin’.”

  Twenty minutes later we came walking back out with the Pentax, the telephoto lens, a camera bag, three filters, and three high-capacity memory chips, all of which she had gotten for three hundred and ninety-five dollars, including tax, leaving the shattered wreckage of a half-dozen formerly cocky sales clerks in her wake.

  “The Big Apple?” Sandy crowed. “Those clowns wouldn't last five minutes on Maxwell Street in Chicago, the old one or the new one.”

  “Okay, you have your new camera, and a masterful performance it was,” I congratulated her. “Should I find you a Polish wedding?”

  We walked to the corner and started looking for a cab. It was already 6:15. The streets were choked with traffic, but I finally got one to pull over to the curb next to us. The driver was a small man with dark skin and straight black hair who looked back at us with a toothy, white grin.

  “How long to drive to the Newark Airport from here?” I asked.

  “Oh, forty-five minutes, I should think,” he answered in a thick accent.

  “Then Newark it is,” I told him as I eased up on my grip.

  “The airport?” Sandy whispered, confused. “I thought you said we couldn't fly.”

  “I did.”

  The cabbie had his CB radio turned on and we heard the incessant chatter of a dozen or more voices speaking in a language I was certain I never heard before. Every now and then, the talk would be punctuated by shrill laughter and our driver would pick up his microphone and chatter along with them.

  “What language is that?” I finally leaned forward and asked.

  “Oh, that is Bengali. A dialect from the north of India, near Calcutta. All the Bengali taxi drivers, we talk to each other on it. You know, we talk about the traffic, the weather, what's happening on the bridges, the best routes to take...”

  “And tell a lot of dirty jokes? Sandy asked, as she kicked off her shoes and curled up on my lap.

  “Oh, no, no. No dirty jokes,” he laughed. He picked up the microphone and chattered some more, looking at her in the mirror and laughing as we heard voices laughing on the radio even louder. “They say, maybe some dirty jokes,” he giggled.

  The driver turned west on Forty-Sixth and the cab slowed to a snail's pace in the narrow two-lane street. The rain came down harder now, banging on the cab's roof like a tin drum. Jockeying inch-by-inch with the other cabs, we eventually made it over to Eighth Avenue where everything completely ground to a halt.

  “With the rain, the traffic is more bad tonight,” the driver shook his head.

  I looked around the interior of the cab. It was clean, not a speck of dirt or dust on the leather seats or floor. Even the windows had been recently washed, inside and out. Up on his visor and saw a city license with his photograph and the name Goutam Ray.

  “Maybe he cleans apartments,” I said as I put my finger on Sandy's lips and leaned forward again. “Goutam, how long would it take for you to drive us to Philadelphia?”

  “Philly? Oh, my. Maybe two hours, maybe a little more, once we get out of this.”

  “What would the fare be?”

  “That is a tariff fare, not metered, plus tolls, and I have to come back…” he looked at me in the rear view mirror. “And all that gasoline, Ayii! And…”

  “How much!” Sandy cut him off.

  “For you, lovely lady, three-hundred dollars.”

  I looked down at
Sandy and shrugged. “Even with your Swiss Army key chain-toolbox, changing license plates and hot-wiring a car in this rain will ruin those new clothes of yours,” I said as I ran my fingers through her hair. “And the lovely new do.”

  “All because of me, eh, Talbott?”

  I looked at my watch. “It's 6:30. When we get to Philly, we can catch a train to DC, or we can wait until morning.”

  “No,” she shook her head. “As much as I'd love to shack up with you for another night of unbridled passion, let's get this thing done, tonight. That business in Washington Square scared the Hell out of me. I'm not brave anymore; I want this thing over.”

  I leaned forward, “Okay, Goutam. We're going to miss our flight out of Newark anyway, so you can drive the lovely lady and me to Philly. But take your time. If you get us there by 9:00 with no problems and without the cops stopping you for any tickets, it's four hundred cash, okay?” I saw his face light up in a grin in the rear view mirror.

  Goutam turned the cab west toward the Lincoln tunnel. “Let's call Hardin,” Sandy said. “I don't want to make it to Washington only to find an empty office at midnight.”

  “Goutam, find a deli or coffee shop for a quick pit stop. I want to grab a couple of sandwiches and we need to make a phone call.”

  Ten minutes later, the cab pulled over to the curb along 42nd street at the door to a deli that had a big carryout sign. “This is my cousin's establishment,” Goutam said. “He has a pay phone and an excellent tongue if I may be bold enough to suggest, sir.”

  “Tongue?” I looked down at her. “That would almost be cannibalism, wouldn't it.”

  “How's the corned beef? Or, don't Hindus eat cow?” Sandy asked.

  “Oh, pretty lady, to not eat kosher corned beef in New York City? With a fresh dill pickle and some potato latkes and a knish? That would truly be a sin.”

  She went for the sandwiches while I went to the phones and dialed Hardin's office. He was not in, but his aide knew to immediately patch me through to his cell phone at the posh Georgetown hotel where he said Hardin was speaking at the annual dinner of the U. S, Association of Chiefs of Police. Totally appropriate, I thought.