He left the bar for a phone booth on the street and dialed the McNallys.
“Did your husband come home?”
“I don’t know where the hell he went.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Poborski called again. After you left. I told him he’d find Con at that damn bar. Con can settle with him. He was furious at me for telling Poborski. I’m so tired of all his bullshit. It’s like he’s afraid of the guy. He can’t stand up for his family.”
That information brought the thugs to Murphy’s. Taylor leaned against the booth for a minute to think. Poborski had threatened McNally and sent the three men who killed Voichek. Poborski had to be behind the murders of Voichek and Declan McNally. Back around he came to the one thing he didn’t get. Why hadn’t McNally reported Poborski? The contracts. Must be. McNally took bribes and he couldn’t finger Poborski or he’d end up revealing his crimes. If so, he’d paid an awful price. A dead son. The murder unsolved. The story led straight to Poborski in the Bronx. He had to prove the connection between Poborski and the three killers.
Before leaving, he made two more calls. Laura was still out. He longed to talk to her before heading to the Bronx. Had she learned anything from Dickie Bennett?
Jansen answered right away at his pay phone.
“Are the vets around who took Torres the Kid from me?”
“They can be. Why?”
“I’m going to see the man who ordered the murders.”
“What do you want them to do?”
“I need witnesses. Help, if things get out of hand. I know your guys are extremely capable. That’s why I called. I want eyes and ears but not vigilantes. Last night they made it sound like they might take things into their own hands.”
“We’ve spoken about it. There will be justice, real and proper justice, for Mark Voichek. Not street justice. It will wreck our cause if the citizens of the city think we’re dangerous. Where are you going?”
“The home of Karl Poborski: 3238 Netherland Avenue in the Bronx.”
“You’ve been a good friend to us. I’ll talk to McAfferty and Doonz and the other vets and let you know when they’re ready.”
“There’s no time. I’m heading there. If they’re coming, tell them to get there as soon as they can.”
Chapter 29
The cab sped along the East River on the FDR Drive. The cabbie agreed to forgo the easy pickings of an Eastside St. Paddy’s Day for the run to the Bronx after Taylor waved a twenty. The way he was tossing cash around, he’d already spent next week’s pay on this story. Who was he kidding? The financial stakes were a lot higher than that. A multi-million-dollar city contract. Maybe more than one. It was enough to murder for. He was missing something though. What had been going on between McNally and Poborski the past five months?
From his pocket, he pulled a piece of wire copy from Mrs. Wiggins’ desk. Huế, South Vietnam’s third largest city, wouldn’t last the week. Panicked people streamed south. When Huế fell, the Communists would point their invading column at Saigon. His brother’s face, the teenaged Billy, not the soldier, came to mind. The man in uniform had faded from memory. Was he forgetting Billy’s role as quickly as the country was forgetting its bad war? The face turned into Declan McNally’s on the autopsy table. Finding the killer was supposed to get him his job back and ease the pain. Another bad plan.
The cab dropped him at the corner. He decided to stake out the house and see if the murderers showed. Shadows passed back and forth behind the drapes of the bay window. One man pacing? Two moving around? A party? St. Paddy’s Day wasn’t celebrated in this house. He walked past, eyed the door and kept going until he was at the other corner. The black Olds was nowhere in sight. He chewed a fresh stick of Teaberry. Wintergreen crossed with licorice. The residential street offered nowhere out of sight to wait. It was also a watchful neighborhood. He hadn’t been there ten minutes when a blue and white squad car pulled up.
The window slid down and an overweight patrolman with a mottled face asked, “You lost, buddy?”
“No, Officer. Just heading toward Broadway.”
“Then head.”
Taylor walked back on Netherland as the cruiser rolled alongside. It pulled away after they were five houses beyond Poborski’s. He turned around and closed in on the front walk. Abandon the stakeout and question Poborski? He must. It was either that or get yanked on a loitering charge. He reached the front stoop and pressed the doorbell. As the button sunk under the pressure of his finger, his stomach tightened. He knew he’d set something in motion, something he wouldn’t be able to stop. This was the story he had to get. He’d never faced an interview more important. Or more dangerous. He should be scared but he wasn’t. He wanted this too badly. The bald-headed son, Sash, opened the door and glared. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to talk to your father.”
“Who is it, Sash?” yelled Karl Poborski from down the hall.
“It’s that reporter.”
“Just a few follow-up questions.” Taylor spoke over Sash’s shoulder in the direction of the older man’s voice.
“Don’t be rude. By all means, invite him in.”
Sash opened the storm door and led Taylor down the hallway past the living room to a big kitchen painted the color of lemon meringue. Something bubbled in a shiny steel pot on the stove. The stench of cabbage was stronger, if that was possible, and the place was still a hot house. Karl Poborski sat at the far end of a Formica table cleared but for two half-full coffee cups, two empty shot glasses, and a bottle of vodka. He was silhouetted against the darkened entrance to the dining room. Someone sat in there. Taylor couldn’t make out details, just a presence. Outnumbered three to one. Not good. He hoped the homeless vets showed up soon.
“I’m sure we can be more hospitable this evening. Now is the time for men to do business, not during a family’s Sunday dinner.” Poborski lifted the bottle. “Can I offer you some?”
“Thanks, but no.”
“It’s not polite to let a man drink alone.” He filled a glass near to brimming and sipped a little off the top. “You know the Russians even stole vodka from the Polish. We invented it. Such bastards.”
Taylor sat in the chair nearest. “I have some questions about the salt contract.”
“Is that so?” Poborski grinned like it was a punch line.
“Do you remember going to McNally’s office after losing the contract?”
“No. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“It did. I’m told you were furious. You yelled at McNally so loudly everyone in the office could hear.” Taylor read from his notebook. “ ‘We take care of each other. You remember that. Your fucking father-in-law knows. I guess you’re not really family, are you?’ ”
“Tsk, tsk. Such language.”
“You made a threat.”
“I was angry, of course. I’m a competitive businessman. I was seeking a solution. That’s all. No threat.”
“So now you remember?”
“Why should I deny it? You have these wonderful sources.” Poborski toasted with the shot glass.
“You brought McNally’s family into it.”
“It was crude. I admit that. I was simply pointing out that Mr. McNally married into a very powerful family. He is not of that family. You are making stories where there are none.”
The mobster was casual and unworried. This was rolling off him. Taylor needed fast confirmation and some insurance if the vets didn’t show to back him up. Time to spin out a story of his own.
“What about your calls to Lydia McNally? What is the ‘arrangement’ you had with McNally? What ‘steps’ are you going to take? I think I know. Soon after you spoke to her, three men showed up at Murphy’s looking for McNally. You sent them. They’re the same men who killed Mark Voichek. They’re the same men who stole Voichek’s clothing to use in the murder of Declan McNally. I’ve written the story. My editor is only holding it for your comment. I have half an hour. Afte
r that, it will run no matter what. And this story is going to run and run.”
“I really was hoping you didn’t know so much.” Poborski waved his finger in a naughty boy gesture. “I’ve not dealt with reporters before. I didn’t expect such diligence. This business is messy enough.”
The figure in the dining room rose and entered the kitchen. A tall man with a thin, white scar on his face. He held the Fedora in his left hand. Taylor got to his feet. Sash blocked the route to the front door. Real confirmation of the story stood before him. Now if he could live long enough to actually write it. Bluff more and come up with enough of a plan to get out the door.
“You heard what I said. This is going in tomorrow’s paper. It’s page one stuff. It runs whether I call by deadline or not.”
“You’ll give new instructions,” Poborski said.
“That’s not going to happen.”
Fedora stepped across the room and hit Taylor hard in the stomach, then again, harder. “Oh, you’ll call.”
Taylor’s knees buckled as the air rushed out of his lungs. He slumped into the kitchen table, knocked the vodka bottle off and went down on his hands and knees gasping to breathe. The reek of vodka threatened to gag him even as he fought to pull in air.
“Spignolli, don’t make a goddamn mess in my kitchen.”
Taylor rolled over on his back and prayed for his diaphragm to stop its spasms. The .32 might improve the bad odds, but he had to get it out before Spignolli searched him.
“He must be convinced or that story will take care of us,” Spignolli said.
“Go ahead and convince him, but if you spill the hulupki, my wife will take care of us.”
Taylor curled up in a feigned coughing fit, and as he did, reached for the pistol grip. Spignolli was too fast. He kicked Taylor’s wrist hard. Pain shot up his arm. The killer violently wrenched the gun from his hand. The pain doubled.
“A gun? What are you doing running around with this little popper?” Spignolli delivered a vicious kick to Taylor’s head.
A white flash. Black.
He dropped to the bottom of a well. This was good. It was probably for the best that he stay down here and let things pass by up there in the light of the kitchen.
No, that was wrong. He had to be in the room. Even if the pain was there too.
He climbed out of the well in his aching skull and forced his eyes to open. The linoleum was cold against his cheek. The shiny toe of an expensive dress shoe came into view, and beyond that, fog. Men speaking. His ears worked better than his eyes for a reason he didn’t understand. He wondered why that was the thing he chose to focus on. Didn’t he have bigger concerns? Muddle and pain.
“Take him out the back through the porch. My neighbors are too nosey. Deal with him the right way. No more bodies dressed like the fucking homeless this time.”
“I told you.” Spignolli’s anger was barely suppressed. “That worked for us before. No one ever thinks to dredge the cemetery.”
“It fucking didn’t work this time. And then you left that bum on the river. No wonder we’ve got this reporter on us like stink on shit. Get him out of here.”
Spignolli pulled Taylor to his feet and pushed him toward the back door.
The rough jostling made his head hurt like he’d been kicked again.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, who’s at the door now?”
That explained the chimes. Taylor assumed they were part of the ringing in his head.
“Sash, go.”
Spignolli pushed open the back door and shoved. Taylor stumbled and sprawled on the ice-cold concrete floor. Shadows stooped in the corners of the porch. They didn’t move, didn’t stand, instead resolved into outdoor furniture.
Yelling followed by two shots.
“What the fuck?” Spignolli turned in the doorway, pulled out a large caliber revolver and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Taylor’s vision cleared a little more, but his head throbbed as if his pulse were wired to a pain button. He rose to a crouch. Outside, beyond the porch, was Poborski’s snow-covered backyard. A clothesline of two crossed pipes on a single pole. White rope hung with icicles. A birdbath was buried up to its bowl.
He moved back to the doorway into the kitchen. Two more gunshots, a guttural yell and a crash. The house must be under attack. Just his luck to confirm the story and end up in the middle of a mob war. His gun lay on the kitchen table. He scrambled across the empty room, grabbed it and crouched low in the porch doorway. He’d wait here until the shooting stopped. Dead reporters wrote no tales.
Spignolli ran back into the kitchen, stopped to fire a shot down the hall and charged toward Taylor. Taylor backed onto the cement deck and held up his gun, which looked like a toy compared to Spignolli’s magnum. Fear gripped the mobster’s scarred face. The hit man wasn’t coming for Taylor. He was running from someone. He turned in the doorway and shot wildly into the house.
An explosive crack in reply lifted Spignolli off his feet and threw him into Taylor with such force that Taylor fell back through the porch’s screen door and into the snow.
His vision wobbled again from the kick he’d taken to the head. He scrambled to get to his feet, slipped on the snow, and got up again. Two hands grabbed him. They pulled him along the back of the house and around the side. Taylor struggled against arms of iron-cord muscle.
A whisper from behind. “Easy. Here to help.”
Taylor turned to the homeless veteran, McAfferty. “Shit, you’ve got to stop appearing out of nowhere.”
“Some firefight. What the fuck is going on in there?”
“Someone’s after the murderers.”
He crept to the corner of the house and looked around. A man stepped onto the porch and fired once more into Spignolli’s prone body. The killer came off the porch and stopped on the steps with the gun at his side. The moon lit the snow and the man. Constable McNally checked the yard and went back inside. Taylor had it wrong. This was no mob war. This was revenge.
“Doonz and some others are nearby, but we’re not messing with guns. We need to move out.” As if in answer to McAfferty, sirens wailed from the direction of 254th Street. “I ain’t spending time in a cube. We’re just the folks the cops like to pull after something messy like this. Quick arrests are the best kind. Sort ’em all out later.”
They edged along the wall. A car roared to life on the street. Taylor couldn’t help but run forward to get a look.
“Jesus, Taylor. No.”
He reached the sidewalk as a light blue Lincoln leaped from the curb with a squeal. McNally was at the wheel. The pain in Taylor’s head almost beat him to the snowy ground. The sirens moved closer, and there were more of them.
“We’re pulling out.” McAfferty’s voice dropped as he moved away. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” Taylor didn’t blame McAfferty. He and his buddies should fear the NYPD.
He went to the front door of the house. Sash was sprawled in the doorway, his eyes open and his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He’d been shot once in the forehead as he opened the door. Poborski was farther down the hall, on his back, with gunshot wounds to the chest and face. Also dead. The sweet iron aroma of the blood mixed with the sour cabbage.
On the porch, Spignolli’s lip quivered. He breathed through spittle, like he was sipping tea. His eyes closed and his breathing grew shallower. Taylor didn’t think he’d last much longer.
He had to get going. In another two hours, every police reporter in town would know about the killings at the house. After that, the whole story would spill. He couldn’t afford to spend that time being questioned by cops.
He walked out through the porch and struggled to move quickly through the backyards of Riverdale to Johnson Avenue, holding his wrist, which was swelling and now hurt almost as much as his head. His pants were soaked through. Three patrol cars flew down Johnson and screeched as they turned onto 230th to cut over to Netherland. Nausea from the blow to his head flipped his stomach o
nce, twice, but he kept lunch down somehow. He shook from the cold. He only had a couple bucks left. Didn’t matter. There were no cabs on Broadway anyway.
He went to a pay phone in the subway station and called Inspector Dellossi. A detective on the McNally detail took the call and said Dellossi was out.
“Tell him it’s about the shootings at the Poborski house in the Bronx.”
“What shootings?”
“Check the radio, man. Two dead, maybe three. Constable McNally did it, in retribution for the murder of his son. You need to get people after McNally.”
“How do you know this?”
A train braked on the downtown side of the tracks.
“Tell Dellossi I’m writing the story. He can call me if he wants to know what I know. I’ll be at my desk in forty minutes.”
He hung up and just made the 1 train as the doors clattered shut. Here was where police work and newspaper work took separate paths. The cops had their job to pursue McNally, arrest him, and charge him with killing the mobsters in revenge. The poor bastard. He’d lost his son and now faced long jail time. All because he took some money for city contracts. That was a sad story, tragic even. Readers would eat it up. Taylor had to somehow get this in the paper by deadline. After that, the press pack would tear away at the story, his advantage gone.
Dellossi was going to be pissed off, probably pissed off enough to drag him out of the newsroom. That was okay. He’d get to the MT just in time for Worthless to try and fire him.
Chapter 30
Taylor stepped off the elevator into a newsroom electric with the energy of a deadline. Every typewriter rattled at once. Reporters walked just at the edge of running. Worthless sat in the slot, editing. Oscar Garfield stood next to the City Desk reading typescript.
“Mr. Garfield, I’ve got a good one for tomorrow,” Taylor said.
Worth eyed Taylor like lunch. “It’s five fifteen. You missed our meeting. Not to worry. You’re still fired.”
“For once, you might want to listen to a reporter.” Taylor turned to address Garfield. “Constable McNally just shot the men who murdered his kid. At least two dead. A mobster named Poborski and his son. Corruption in city contracting. I’m naming names. Names make news.” The last line was the editor-in-chief’s favorite slogan. If there was a time to sell a story, it was now.
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