Nighthawks

by Lambert Nagle

  ‘Ah, there you are.’

  Stephen turned to look around. It was Helen, who escorted him over to the table where they were serving coffee and tea to the congregation. He took his cup and stood outside with the handful of remaining parishioners, enjoying the spring sunshine. The black Cadillac was still there with its engine idling. Stephen, with his back to the vehicle, passed the photo of McCarthy around.

  ‘I’m not surprised your sister has lost touch with him. He hung around with them,’ a parishioner said, glancing towards the limousine. ‘Be careful.’ She gave him a searching look before moving off to talk to someone else. As he slipped the photo back into his pocket, the limo glided away.

  Stephen downed his coffee, gave his thanks to the volunteers manning the coffee stand and left. He’d arranged to meet Cormac Hannigan for lunch at an Irish pub close to Fenway Park before the Red Sox game that afternoon.

  Hannigan had brought along a former colleague. ‘This is Brendan Fitzgerald. He worked the beat during Russo senior’s time.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Stephen,’ he said, grabbing his hand and nearly crushing his fingers. His accent was hybrid Kerry-Boston.

  ‘You two go ahead. Me and Stephen can fill each other in with news about family over dinner this evening,’ Hannigan said, winking at Stephen as he walked over to chat to a group of fellow Red Sox supporters.

  As the Guinness flowed, Stephen passed McCarthy’s photo over to Fitzgerald.

  ‘I knew they went to the Catholic church in Allston and had paid for its restoration. I guess they thought that they’d bought the priest too. Me and the other Catholic cops, we avoided that church. We don’t share communion with gangsters. I wouldn’t know what the priest there looked like. Sorry.’ Fitzgerald shook his head.

  At least Stephen had the testimony of the parishioner. She’d been guarded, conscious of her surroundings, not wanting to say too much.

  ‘I had to go to the house and take a statement from one of the sons after a traffic accident. Joe it was. I didn’t think I’d get out of there alive. Russo was charm itself. Said if his boy had done something wrong he had to pay. That kid was a piece of work even then. As soon as his father was out of earshot, Joe threatened to have my hands cut off if the case ever went to court,’ Fitzgerald said.

  ‘And did it?’

  He shook his head. ‘The charges were dropped after I told my boss what had happened. He told me I was dumb to go there in the first place. That house, you should see it. It’s like a museum. Full of beautiful stuff.’

  ‘Russo senior, what was he like?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘More Don Corleone than Tony Soprano,’ Fitzgerald said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He acquired people and beautiful things. Maria, his wife…’

  ‘The Jackie Kennedy lookalike? I saw her today, stepping out of a limo to go to mass.’

  ‘That would be her, yes,’

  ‘Go on,’ Stephen said.

  ‘Giuseppe collected people who were useful to him.’

  ‘Cops?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘For sure. But not me. Guys who gambled in the clubs he controlled. Guys who couldn’t pay their debts.’

  ‘So what happened to these bent cops?’

  ‘They were loyal to the old man up until the end. But they’re all dead now, just like the old man,’ Fitzgerald said, shaking his head.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Joe inherited his father’s empire.’

  ‘What sort of hold would the old man have had over the priest do you think?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Blackmail, extortion, death threats to family members, that was Giuseppe’s favourite MO.’

  ‘McCarthy let slip he was given some artwork by a grateful parishioner. Doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who could be easily bought.’

  Fitzgerald shook his head. ‘Because it’s a power trip. Coercion, even. Or the priest got something out of it. But wherever he is, he’d better watch his back. He likely knows everything there is to know about that family. And he worked for the old man. Two unpardonable sins in Joe’s eyes.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ Stephen said. ‘And I appreciate your time. Let me pay for this,’ he said as the waiter brought them the bill.

  While Stephen was paying at the bar, the supporters at the nearby table came over to talk to Fitzgerald. As they made their way to the exit, there seemed so much camaraderie between the police officers and their former colleagues that Stephen felt envious. Maybe he’d joined the wrong police force.

  ‘Let’s go enjoy the game,’ Hannigan said, slapping him on the back.

  Rome, Italy

  * * *

  Joe Russo sat in the back of a limousine with blacked-out windows, going through the books with his accountant and lawyer.

  ‘What’s this for?’ He stabbed a chubby finger at a set of expenses.

  ‘That’s the arrangement we have with the art dealer—a 50:50 split,’ the accountant said.

  ‘Had,’ Russo said. ‘I don’t care what Pop did, we’re doing it my way from now on. You got that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ How he loved making these fools squirm. ‘We get this Hurst guy in and explain we want a whole new contract and that it’s 70:30 from now on.’

  ‘The current contract runs until the end of the year,’ the accountant said.

  Joe interrupted. ‘So what? New regime, new rules. Let’s call him up. Fix a meeting for Tuesday. Let’s go and see the priest,’ Joe said, looking up across the square to McCarthy’s apartment.

  An urgent knock made McCarthy jump. His first thought was that someone in the building was ill and was asking for help. He unlocked the door as quickly as he could. His face dropped when he saw the burly figure of Joe Russo and two of his associates. What were they doing unannounced and outside his apartment? McCarthy, gripped by fear, did his best to pull himself up straight. Joe’s hair was slicked back, flattened against his head, making it look too large for his body. He left a trail of overpowering aftershave in his wake as he barged into the apartment.

  ‘Mind if I have a look around?’ Joe said as he pushed past McCarthy.

  ‘To what do I owe the honour?’ McCarthy said.

  Joe didn’t answer.

  As they passed the hallway table, which had a ceramic bowl in the middle of it, crammed with keys, loose change and business cards, McCarthy noticed he’d left a pile of brochures about Mexico. He glanced back and saw a smirk on Joe’s face.

  ‘Pretty nice pad you got here, Father. You don’t find it too busy with all this stuff?’ Joe said, indicating with a nod to every inch of wall space, covered with a painting or a drawing. Joe’s dislike of art had begun, McCarthy thought, when he had started to give Giuseppe an insight that art had meaning. With his father absorbed in a new interest, Joe began his attention-seeking behaviour. His triumph was causing his father maximum embarrassment, throwing that tantrum in the Stewart Gardner collection all those years ago.

  At heart, McCarthy told himself, Joe was that same self-absorbed little boy. He had to concentrate on keeping his nerve and try to forget about the evil teenager and adult he’d become.

  By then he and Joe had passed into the sitting room. But worryingly his two acolytes were still lingering in the hallway. What had they seen that they shouldn’t have?

  Joe looked around the walls at the various artworks.

  ‘I don’t see the painting Pop gave you.’

  Joe seemed obsessed. One more way to get one back on the old man. McCarthy held his nerve.

  ‘It’s being restored.’

  ‘I spoke to the person Pop recommended. Interesting guy. Turns out he helped Pop with his art business. Quite a money-spinner. The one I knew nothing about,’ Joe said, while staring at McCarthy.

  Was Joe implying that McCarthy was in on Giuseppe’s business dealings? It seemed he was.

  ‘You know anything about that?’

  McCarthy shook his head. ‘I stopped advising your
father about art years ago. I passed him on to a dealer who I knew by reputation. Robert Hurst.’

  Joe beamed at him, which made McCarthy nervous.

  ‘Di Lauro mentioned Hurst too. Someone else I’m going to be having a little chat with. Seeing as he now works for me.’

  The one thing that Joe and his father had in common was that they assumed anyone was for sale.

  ‘Di Lauro was disappointed he never got to restore that painting, especially after the old man recommended him,’ Joe said.

  McCarthy had to find a way to bat this one away.

  ‘I used to work with a specialist who had worked on something very similar. I asked him.’

  Joe Russo nodded.

  ‘When you were working for the Pope? Hear it didn’t work out so well for you.’ Joe said with a knowing smile.

  McCarthy stopped in his tracks. He flushed red with embarrassment. How had Joe found out about that? It had been the most shameful episode of his life.

  The doorbell ringing unexpectedly had brought it all back: two plainclothes officers from the Vatican police force turning up on his doorstep, pushing him aside, thrusting a search warrant in his face. They had an inventory and seized all the artworks he’d borrowed from the papal collection. Despite his protestations that these were works rotting in the storeroom, that they hadn’t been displayed in more than twenty years, that he’d catalogued and which his predecessors didn’t even know existed, he was forced to resign on the spot. But the worst blow of all had been that he was banned from his beloved Vatican Museums.

  The official line was that he had resigned. McCarthy had always suspected that the Judas who reported him was Robert Hurst. He knew for sure it wasn’t the conservator. But the look Joe had just given him was so smug and confident that it made him think. How did he know? What did he do? Bribe a lowly maintenance worker? Had he planted an insider in the museum waiting for him to put a foot wrong? McCarthy had been brought to his knees by the scandal. He mourned the loss of his job each and every day.

  ‘Taking it all with you when you go? Like the rest of the stuff?’ Joe said.

  ‘I hope to, yes.’

  ‘Let me know when you get the painting back. I’d like to see what it looks like when it’s cleaned up.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll arrange to send you a photograph.’

  Joe wasn’t going to let this one go. He took one last glance around the apartment.

  ‘If you need help moving out, let me know. I have a few contacts in the business.’

  How typical of Joe to make his goodbyes an implied threat of eviction. He didn’t need to worry. McCarthy couldn’t wait to move out of the apartment.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll certainly call for help if I need it,’ McCarthy said. Once Joe and his two associates had gone, he listened as they made their way down the stairs. He heard the front door of the building close and went to look out the window. They were walking away.

  He went to find his phone and saw that it was lying on the hall table. That was funny. He didn’t remember leaving it there. The ceramic bowl holding his keys and loose change had been moved. And the business cards seemed to have been rifled through. Franco’s card was missing. And so was Stephen Connor’s fake one. He’d put both their numbers in his phone. Why hadn’t he thrown away the business cards? Stephen could look after himself, he was a cop, whereas Franco was utterly defenceless. He called him but the phone rang out before going to voicemail.

  McCarthy sat down, his head in his hands and began to take short, sharp breaths. He grabbed his inhaler.

  Chapter 17

  Stephen thought about what Fitzgerald had said, as he boarded his flight back on Sunday night. He slipped into Rome early Monday morning and made his way to work. He’d had three missed calls from McCarthy on his cover phone, which brought on his anxiety. He was due at the apartment that afternoon. The messages McCarthy had left had been uncharacteristically abrupt: call me urgently, we need to talk.

  Stephen struggled to keep his eyes open at work. Elisabetta had noticed.

  ‘Rough weekend?’

  ‘You could say that. Went away.’

  ‘That’s why I couldn’t get hold of you. I knocked on your door on the off chance. Tried the phone too. I didn’t leave a message: I heard it transfer to an overseas number.’

  ‘It was a spur of the moment decision to go. A distant cousin’s stag do.’ That was enough. He’d covered his ass. He wasn’t convinced Elisabetta believed him.

  ‘Did I forget something,’ Stephen asked, wondering why Elisabetta was keen to get hold of him.

  ‘It was the briefing notes and paperwork for your meeting with Michael McCarthy. So that you sound like you know what you’re doing when you’re valuing his artworks. If you stick to the script you should be fine. Although it’s better if you learn some of it off by heart so it won’t sound too forced.’

  Stephen felt guilty when he looked at all the material Elisabetta had prepared for him.

  ‘It must have taken you all weekend. Saved me hours of time. Thanks.’

  He grinned at her.

  She shrugged in reply.

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  She’d covered everything and had every right to be pissed off with him. She put her head down and went back to work, carefully avoiding his gaze. Did she think he still wasn’t up to the job? It was hard to tell.

  ‘Forgot to ask you, how did it go with Renzo?’ Elisabetta said, looking up from her desk.

  Stephen looked around. He could see Renzo’s desk in the next room. The chair was empty.

  'It’s alright he’s not here. As usual.’

  ‘His wife and kid left him. And he’s got money problems. I lent him 400 euros,’ Stephen said.

  ‘You did? He asked me and Pasquale for the same. We’re a small team. But he was foisted onto us. I’ll have to talk to Alberti.’ Elisabetta sighed. ‘And it’s a distraction from the job in hand.’

  Elisabetta was hard to read but he got the sense that not only was she angry with Renzo, but with him too for being so unprepared for his meeting with McCarthy. If he screwed up, he’d let them both down. What was he thinking? That he could just get there and wing it?

  He returned McCarthy’s call, but there was no answer.

  Rome, Italy

  * * *

  On the street, all was quiet as the modestly dressed man stepped out of an anonymous doorway. There was a clang as the bolts on the door pulled shut behind him. The scruffy exterior of the building gave no hint of the value of the artworks that were restored behind closed doors. McCarthy left Franco’s with a rectangular parcel wrapped in black plastic, casually tucked under his arm. A passer-by glancing at him wouldn’t give him or the building a second look.

  McCarthy kept telling himself that in its present state, the painting was nothing more than a fake, pretending to be a Renaissance ensemble studio work. He resisted installing extra security measures—all that would do was alert Joe that he had something of value. Someone in his apartment block was spying on him, he felt sure. Who, he didn’t know. His original plan of inviting Stephen around to his apartment, on the pretext of valuing his artworks, was to hand over the painting there and then.

  But now, with Joe in Rome, everything changed. It was imperative that Franco be given police protection immediately. He was so agitated at the thought of the danger he’d put his friend in that he failed to hear the footsteps behind him. Someone grabbed him by the arm.

  McCarthy was pushed down the alleyway, behind his apartment, away from public view. His attacker had a skinny wrist and was wearing a grey sweatshirt or a hoodie. But what McCarthy noticed most was his stale, unkept smell and that he was twitching.

  ‘Bruno? Is that you? You don’t have to do this. If it’s money you want…’

  ‘Shut the fuck up old man.’

  As Bruno swung his fist, his pupils dilated, he could have been hitting a punchbag. McCarthy tried to shield his face and the painting, but the blow landed square on hi
s jaw. He fell heavily onto the concrete. The painting landed on top of him.

  Before he knew it, Bruno had snatched his wallet and the painting. He scurried away like a frightened rat.

  As McCarthy tried to stem the blood from his forehead, his phone rang.

  At last Stephen managed to get hold of McCarthy. He could hear scrabbling and laboured breathing.

  Was he having an asthma attack?

  ‘Are you having trouble breathing?’

  ‘No.’ McCarthy slurred his words. What little Stephen knew about the priest, being drunk at eleven in the morning wasn’t his style.

  ‘Where are you?’ Stephen asked urgently.

  ‘Piazza di Santa Maria, outside my…’ McCarthy said, struggling to get the words out.

  And that was when the phone went dead.

  ‘It’s McCarthy. Something’s wrong. I have to go,’ Stephen said calling out to Elisabetta as he ran out the door. McCarthy had been trying to finish his sentence. Was the missing word, ‘apartment?’ It was worth a shot.

  He ran around the corner, into the small square, dodging a group of dawdling backpackers, while avoiding the badly parked vehicles protruding onto the pavements. He slowed down to a brisk walk as he neared a busy café. He caught the chatter of patrons and the clink of cups, followed by the hum of traffic as he made his way towards Piazza di Santa Maria. He did a quick circuit of the square and tried each of the roads leading off it. No sign. He noted a number of alleyways that branched off, but it seemed odd that McCarthy would be on the wrong side of the street, away from his apartment.

  Stephen scanned the exterior of the apartment building. He couldn’t see a sign of any disturbance; the pots of geraniums were intact and freshly watered. He pressed the buzzer and waited. No answer. Then he tried the concierge. No reply there either. He saw a woman’s face at a window, peering down at him. As soon as he glanced up, she withdrew. Then he heard the clank of the metal lift doors opening. A solidly built man in his seventies, keys clanking, peered around the front door.