Taylor didn’t blame her, but he had to get her to calm down. “Easy. Easy. You never saw us. We never saw you. We will protect your secret. You’ll be safe here.”
“How do I know?”
“You’ve already gotten this far. And that’s a long way, right?”
She managed a small, pained smile. “I did get us cleaned up.”
Laura walked over and crouched down to say goodbye to Clare, who held tight to Joanna’s hand.
“My mommy’s taking care of us.”
“She sure is.” Laura squeezed a little arm once. “She’s going to keep doing that.”
Taylor hurried them to the car, partly because of the cold but also out of concern Joanna’s watcher would appear out of the snowy dark. He drove on Ontario toward downtown Albany. The dashboard clock said ten to midnight. An AM station said the temperature was seven degrees. Some serious villains had pulled Joanna into a mess. He wasn’t sure he could pull her out. Or himself. But knowing something was better than the void of the past eight weeks.
“They may kill her anyway. I don’t think she’ll ever be safe here.”
“She’s as safe as she can be.” Laura put her hand on his. “There’s nothing more you can do now. Were you serious? You’re really not going to let the paper know? Not even Garfield?”
“Not until I can guarantee their safety. I can’t go to the cops because the guys who set me up are cops. Besides, who’d put her in protective custody because she hoaxed a reporter? They’d just laugh at me. Or throw a party.”
“Then Worth’s going to fire you,” she looked out the window, “on Monday.”
“He may. I’m sure as hell not getting Joanna and her daughter killed to save my job.” He withdrew his hand to rub the bridge of his nose and put it back on top of hers. Too many unanswered questions rattled around in his head. He was exhausted from thinking. He was playing a game against several unseen, unknown opponents without any idea of the rules. “We should stay over here and get up and drive early. Tomorrow is Declan McNally’s funeral and the memorial service for Joshua Harper. Voichek is the break we really need.”
He pulled up to the Wellington Hotel on State Street. He’d stayed here on a previous trip to track down a Queens assemblyman who’d bribed his way out of a hit-and-run. That story pissed off the party hacks, pissed off the political reporters at the paper and pissed off the cops. All for nothing; the case vanished somewhere inside the Queens DA’s office.
“I’ll get us rooms.”
“Get us one.” She kissed him.
He got out and handed the car keys to a bellhop. The wind howled down the avenue in front of the old hotel as he came around to the sidewalk.
“Christ, I thought New York was cold.”
“It’ll be warmer soon.” She looped her arm in his.
Taylor took a room key from the sleepy desk clerk, who roused himself long enough to leer at both of them. Wasn’t leering supposed to be over with? When was he ever going to get any benefit from the sexual revolution? Far as he could tell, it hadn’t happened. He unlocked the door and turned on the light. The room was decorated on the opulent side of Victorian, with lots of drapes and pillows and marble. He slid off his coat and helped Laura off with hers. She turned the light off and switched on a small reading lamp.
“Need to get the lighting right.”
“Yes.”
He stepped close to her. “We’re going to live up to the look that clerk gave us.”
“I hope so.”
He kissed her and caught the scent of flower blossoms, not too heavy, coming off her wavy brown hair. They were in bed, undressed, and under the covers quickly, driven by both the cold and their desire. He did his best to slow down, but it was still first-time lovemaking, a mix of guesswork, anxiety, and passion. He’d gone a long time without. He’d thought about this since he left Laura’s apartment in disappointment the night before. He wasn’t disappointed now.
PART V: Saturday, March 15, 1975
Chapter 16
Taylor woke with a sudden start, a rearing leap to befuddled consciousness. It happened whenever he slept in an unfamiliar place. It still happened in the trailer, at least when he didn’t drink enough. His subconscious wouldn’t get used to the Airstream. He didn’t blame it. Laura’s light, even breathing came from next to him, the same sound of living energy as when she dozed in the car on the ride up. That’s right. They’d gone to Albany, to track down a junkie and her daughter. Would it be enough? Could he help the two of them? He slipped out of bed, reconsidering the wisdom of the move when the cold air hit him. In the closet he found two extra blankets and put one over Laura.
The clock read three thirty-five. He wrapped the other blanket around himself and went to the window. Lights illuminated the state capitol, a gothic pile that looked more haunted mansion than seat of government. Taylor pitied poor old Albany. The provincial river town couldn’t compete with a New York, not even a wounded, reeling one. People cared what happened to NYC. The world looked on in fascination when it burned or went broke. No one south of Poughkeepsie gave a shit about Albany.
To the right rose the near-completed new skyline commissioned by now Vice President Rockefeller. The filing-cabinet modernism of the Empire State Mall was like some fake future capital dreamed up for a World’s Fair.
“What’s out there?” Laura, wrapped in the blanket, pressed up to him.
“Rockefeller’s folly. He blew millions.”
“Can you see The Egg from here?”
“It’s that blob to the right. They’ve been working on it since ’66.”
“My father says Rockefeller has an edifice complex. God, he hates that man.”
“Does he know him?”
“Definitely. Nelson is a real disappointment to Daddy’s wing of the Grand Old Party.”
She moved around in front of him, opened her blanket, and closed it around them both. She was shivering.
“You’re cold.”
“Warm me up.”
They went back to bed and made love again, slower this time but with more passion and less guesswork. He didn’t fall asleep immediately after. Instead, he stared at the filigreed plaster of the ceiling and planned his next steps. He’d get going early to make Declan McNally’s funeral and Joshua Harper’s memorial service. He couldn’t wait on Jansen anymore. If Voichek didn’t show, he’d start talking to homeless people to get on the man’s trail.
It was Saturday. The weekend would help. He had two clear days to make as much progress as possible on the McNally story and figure out what to tell Garfield and Worth about Joanna Kazka and her daughter. He followed the plaster paths in the ceiling as his mind tracked leads. He didn’t know who Pickwick was, and what was worse, the man was now messing in matters that could destroy his career and get the Kazkas killed. Taylor didn’t like being manipulated. His eyes stopped in a plaster cul-de-sac. What were the hidden connections that led from Joanna to those who set him up? That too was a dead end. He was either close to a breakthrough or he’d trapped himself. Which was it? He imagined charging headlong at a finish line that turned out to be a cliff. The cartoon image would be funny if so much weren’t at stake.
He propped his head on the palm of his hand and watched Laura sleep for five minutes, ten, until his eyelids lowered in time with her breathing, and he dropped off.
Chapter 17
At the front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a deputy mayor spoke about Declan McNally. “I count myself a good friend of this incredible family struck by terrible tragedy. Here was a boy who was always willing to help those in need. No one worked harder in school than he did.”
The students from Eli filled five pews across the aisle from Taylor. The girls were crying. The boys didn’t know what to do with themselves. He was too far from the front to see the family, though for a moment he thought he glimpsed Lydia McNally’s thick brown hair as she leaned on Constable’s shoulder. Enough flowers to fill the Brooklyn Botanical surrounded the coffin. Th
e cloud of incense floating around the casket masked their bouquet. The churchy, sweet odor of death.
The priest came last, his job to cap the proceedings with salvation. “We want him back. We are the lost ones.”
The girls cried louder, and a moan came from the family up front. The boys shuffled their feet.
“We grieve for our loss. Declan is not lost. He is risen. Let us pray.”
He followed the crowd down the aisle and stood on Fifth Avenue at the edge of the large group. The wind whipped overcoats so they crackled in the wind like black flags. He moved toward Constable McNally, who was thanking people in a makeshift receiving line at the bottom of the cathedral steps.
Taylor reached the front. “My condolences, Mr. McNally.”
“Call me Con.” McNally moved back a couple of steps from the line. He fixed his clear blue eyes on Taylor. “I want to thank you, if I didn’t properly Wednesday night. If it wasn’t for you, we would never have found him.”
“Looks like someone was trying to make your son disappear.”
“I don’t think so. They’re incompetent at Bellevue. They weren’t doing their goddamned jobs.” He lowered his voice back into sadness. “We would still have been looking for our boy.”
“No doubt the homicide detectives are very focused on the case.” He left the obvious unspoken. The police will do it because Constable had been a cop and his father-in-law was Democratic Party chief.
“Yeah, they’ll turn over heaven and earth. Cops always take care of their own. But their best isn’t what it used to be. The NYPD is crippled.”
The receiving line became clusters of people waiting for McNally to return. His wife bent her head to a gray-haired woman, who was weeping quietly.
“Listen, I will never forget it was you who ID’d our son. Not a cop. Certainly not the coroner. Please tell me, have you got anything new?”
“I’m tracking down some leads. I’ll let you know what I find. It would help if I had an idea on suspects. Do you? Did Declan have enemies?”
“No. None. That’s why this is so hard for us. He was a good kid, well liked by everyone. You must have heard that.”
Taylor hadn’t heard anything like that, except from the girlfriend. An out-of-touch dad? Or was something else going on?
McNally rubbed the dark shadows under his eyes. “He got up to the usual teenage stuff. Nothing wrong with that. Especially at that school. You need to let them blow off steam.”
“What about you? You can make a lot of enemies working as a cop.”
“Me? It’d destroy me if someone did this to get at me.” A weary shake of the head. “No one’s ever threatened me. You know, ‘I’ll get you copper,’ as he was being dragged off to jail. Demarco and Simone are checking my files.”
“They can be a pain in the ass, but they get the bad guys.”
“They haven’t impressed me so far. They’re also checking into threats against my father-in-law. There’s somebody with enemies.”
A heavyset man in a black suit came over to McNally and spoke to him in an undertaker’s hushed tones. McNally again looked over at his wife, who was in the middle of the crowd now. Assistants loaded flowers into the back of the hearse, all but obscuring the coffin.
“Sorry, I have to talk to these people before we go. This day is never going to end. Call my office. I want to know how you’re getting on.” McNally walked off.
Yes, he’d call on Monday. He wasn’t finished asking about enemies. He also had questions to ask McNally about his son’s behavior. They weren’t the kind for right after the funeral.
Chapter 18
Taylor stood behind the last row of chairs in the cramped chapel of Morrison & Sons Funeral Home on West 47th. The room was filled with the homeless, plus some soup kitchen and social worker types, and AA people from the days when Joshua Harper was trying to get sober. They all came to remember the life of a homeless man who died outside the Akron Bus Station trying to get to his wife and kid in Topeka. The place smelled of closely packed bodies, booze, cigarettes, and wet carpet. A flat-faced man in an ill-fitting suit spoke for a good fifteen minutes over coughing and the rustling of coats.
“I know in my heart that Joshua continued to search for peace. Now let us recite the Serenity Prayer.” That confirmed his AA credentials.
The group droned. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The flat-faced man called for quiet contemplation.
An older man with a trimmed, snow-white beard and ruddy face squeezed in next to Taylor. “You’re the reporter looking for me?” the man whispered. “I’m Voichek.”
“Yes. We need to talk. You’re being chased?”
“Had to see Joshua off, though.” He was short and stocky, with a face that had a lot of stories to tell. He wore a fisherman’s sweater, work pants flared at the bottom, and a wool, hound’s-tooth overcoat. “Jansen thinks you can help.”
“I’ll try. Who’s after you?"
“The guys who bought my clothes.”
A woman sitting in the row in front of them turned and gave Taylor a look.
He lowered his voice. “The clothes Declan McNally had on?”
“I guess. From what I hear, at least. It’s my jacket. I had no idea they were going to put my stuff on a dead kid. Hear me. I don’t beg. I earn everything I spend. So when someone offers five dime notes for my clothes, I don’t ask questions.”
“Did you know the men?”
“Never seen them before. And I see a lot of people around this town.” He turned to check the door. “Oh shit. That’s them.” Voichek stepped hard on Taylor’s right foot as he squeezed past, jostled along the back of the tiny room toward the corner and up the right aisle to the front.
Three men in trench coats, one wearing a snap-brim fedora, the two others in black watch caps, pushed into the room from the main doorway, shouldering aside mourners. An old woman banged into the wall with a weak cry. The room was small. They would get to Voichek fast. Something needed to be done.
“Jansen, the men at the back of the room in trench coats,” Taylor yelled. “Stop them for as long as you can.”
Jansen popped up like a gopher. “Everyone. This is an emergency. Head to the back of the room. Now!”
A red-haired man in bib overalls, the first to move, tumbled to the floor, shoved by the man in the fedora. Rows emptied. People pushed to the back, forming a clot of bodies around the intruders. The sudden surge carried Taylor along toward the thugs even as he tried to hold his ground. He couldn’t fight the press of bodies. Voichek was going for a doorway in the front corner of the chapel. Taylor couldn’t lose him now; yet he was being pushed in the opposite direction.
He climbed onto the chair in front of him. With everyone standing, all the seats were empty. He ran down the row on the seats of the folding chairs, almost toppled over when one rickety seat flipped up, twisted his right ankle, jumped to the next one and made it to the aisle at the wall. His ankle screamed in pain. Voichek sprinted past Joshua Harper’s urn. Taylor started hobbling up the aisle.
Someone behind yelled. The three men punched and pushed their way through the crowd at a far faster pace than Taylor would have hoped. Cries. Shouts at various volumes and pitches. The thugs threw people aside as if they were rag dolls.
One voice pleaded, “Don’t step on Jerry. Get Jerry off the floor.”
Voichek disappeared through the doorway. Fedora raised a large caliber revolver over his head and fired the gun into the ceiling. Survival instincts kicked in, and the homeless crouched to the ground as if a bomb had gone off.
Taylor made the doorway into the next room. The gunshot didn’t freeze Voichek. He ran between two rows of caskets parked like cars in a lot. Each carried a card displaying a price in magic marker. They’d both found safety, if short lived, in Morrison & Sons’ showroom. The gun went off again. Taylor’s reflexes triggered. He dove
sideways, slid off the top of a glossy maple casket and onto the floor next to a black one. He’d covered shootings daily for ten years, but he’d never been on the receiving end. Everything was happening too fast. Out of control. Chaos and pandemonium.
Voichek ran with the speed of a young man through the far door of the showroom. Taylor followed him into a workroom, forced his right ankle to take weight it had no interest in and went through a door to burst into the cold, mid-afternoon sunlight. He ran as best he could east on 47th. They were both easy targets now, and Taylor was the nearest. Voichek made the corner and took off up Ninth. Taylor picked up the pace, turned onto the avenue and leveled an old lady leaving a corner bodega with two shopping bags.
“Sorry, sorry.” Navel oranges rolled around on the sidewalk. He got to his feet.
“Get away from me!”
“I’m sorry.” He crossed 48th as Voichek climbed on an M9 bus. He urged one last bit of speed out of his heavy legs and pained right ankle and threw his arm between the closing doors of the bus. The doors shut on it.
“Ow! Open up.”
“Man, there’s other damn buses.” The driver swung the handle to open them again.
Taylor limped to the backseat where Voichek crouched. Fedora ran toward the bus as it pulled away from the curb and turned on his heels to chase as the bus passed. He got alongside and banged at the door. He screamed at the driver.
Voichek yanked Taylor down onto the hard plastic seat with violent strength. “You don’t need to make it easy for them.”
“They saw you get on.”
“Wouldn’t have if you’d stayed the hell off.”
“I’m tired of this,” said the driver. “Why can’t anyone wait for the next damn bus today?”
Taylor stood again and moved forward, prepared to tell any sort of story about the man to keep the bus moving. He was thrown back as the driver shifted up a gear and moved the bus into the middle of the avenue with a diesel roar. Fedora yelled once more and continued banging, the raps receding down the side of the bus and ceasing after a final bang on the rear.
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