St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking

by Dana Haynes

Michael had been angry and unforgiving. How then, now, to say his own path wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up?

  “No, look. I’m sorry, kiddo. A job’s a job. Lotta guys are on the dole, you know? Being a bean counter in a cube ain’t the same as taking welfare. Hey, how’s you and Kathy?”

  “Katalin.”

  “You an item, you two?”

  “We work in the same office. You doing okay? Staying out of trouble?”

  He heard the subtle change of tone in his dad’s voice; heard him glug from the beer can. “Just watching some ball, kiddo. Just watching some ball.”

  “Sure,” Michael said. “You’re as clean as mom’s floor.”

  He listened to nothing. The thirty-footer came around, aligned for the entry to the marina.

  “Your mother’s floor wasn’t all that clean.”

  Michael blushed, sorry he’d pushed that particular button.

  He knew that his old man had had great contacts in New York’s immigrant crime communities, including the Slavs. In his day, Patrick Finnigan had known a little something about everything. He thought about bringing up Belgrade.

  Patrick said, “You talked to your mother lately?”

  “Last week. She sounds good.”

  Patrick said. “Good. Good.”

  The silence reigned. In the background, the crack of an aluminum bat, the soft susurrus of a happy crowd. Somewhere, in Arizona or California, people were buying dogs with spicy mustard, watching hyperathletic cheerleaders, and second-guessing managers. Somewhere, it was America. Somewhere. Just not in Cyprus.

  “Hey, Dad, I gotta go.”

  “You bet,” Patrick Finnigan said. “Oh, hey. You remember a jackoff name of Burkovsky at the DA’s office?”

  Finnigan squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the lids with the pads of his finger and thumb. “Berkowski.”

  “Fuckin’ guy,” Patrick Finnigan said. And then nothing.

  “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Hmm? Nothing. Burkovsky, Berkowski, the guy’s a dickless twerp with nothing better to do.”

  “Nothing better than what? You into something, Dad?”

  “I’m into a fucking baseball game on TV, Mickey. I’m about halfway into a can of Coors. What do you think? I got this bracelet on my ankle, you think maybe I’m taking belly dancing lessons at the junior college?”

  Berkowski, with the New York District Attorney’s Office, specialized in high-profile corruption cases. Current cases; not old cases. “What’s he want with you?”

  “Ah, who knows with these Jews?”

  Finnigan and Berkowski had gone to the same high school; the Berkowskis were Polish Catholic. “What’d you do?”

  Patrick said, “I didn’t do anything, Mickey. Okay? Guy’s got a hard-on for me. Understand?”

  Finnigan rested his forehead against the sill, the breeze of the Mediterranean blowing his hair. He closed his eyes.

  “Mickey?”

  “Yeah. Hey, I gotta go. Long distance …”

  “Sure. Not made of money.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call next week. Love you. Bye.”

  It’d been a hell of a childhood.

  Paddy Finnigan taught his son to be a tough little bastard. He paid for boxing lessons. He also taught him all the things the other kids could only dream of: How to throw a punch. How to pick a lock. How to count cards.

  Paddy taught his daughter, Nicole, much of the same stuff. Partly because she wanted to be a cop like her dad. Partly so she could take care of herself around boys.

  “The Finnigans are cops because the world needs rules, and we need someone to make sure everyone plays by the rules,” his old man had told both kids, sitting on a stoop and watching the sunset. Mickey was fourteen; Nicole was twelve. “But that don’t mean we have to follow all of those rules.”

  Nicole said, “How come?”

  “You ever watch basketball?”

  “All the time,” Mickey said.

  “Ever see anyone call a foul on the ref?”

  Both kids laughed. But in truth, they’d never thought about it before. “No.”

  “Course not. The refs keep the peace. But the refs don’t have to follow the same rules. They can’t. That’s not how the world works.” Paddy had handed over the bag and bottle. “You remember that.”

  A decade later, Michael Patrick Finnigan turned out to be an exemplary cadet at the same police academy that had accepted his grandfather and his uncles and his dad. New York’s Finest had known two generations of Finnigan Boys, and was happy to accept the third.

  Michael had partnered well as a rookie, got placed in a major-crimes unit that most cops would have given their eyeteeth for.

  For the first year, a voice in the back of his head warned him that something was wrong. It wasn’t just that his old man was popular. It wasn’t just that his family had a legacy of law enforcement. No, there was something else.

  By the second year, he understood.

  The Finnigan Boys were connected. Majorly connected. And Michael would be, too, once he’d earned his bones.

  Young Officer Finnigan finally got drunk enough to ask Captain Patrick Finnigan about it, one night in an Irish bar in the Lower East Side.

  “This is the way the world works, kiddo,” his father had said. “You can be inside. Or you can be outside. And Mickey, inside’s a shitload better. In all ways.”

  Michael Patrick Finnigan resigned from the NYPD a week and a half later. (And Nicole Finnigan’s admission to the police academy was accepted the following day.)

  Michael had been with the US Marshal’s Office for a full two years before the district attorney brought charges of corruption against Captain Patrick Finnigan.

  The case took fifteen months to work its way to a guilty verdict.

  Deputy US Marshal Michael Patrick Finnigan never returned to New York during that time. He accepted calls from his father, and from his mother, but he knew that the lines were tapped. He begged off from conversation within a minute or two, every time.

  He and Nicole stopped talking.

  He read about his dad’s conviction in USA Today, while sitting outside a tavern in Laredo, watching a Texas Ranger sell 10-gauge Benellis out of the back of his pickup to fifteen-year-old Ciudad warlords.

  A year later, he’d been assigned to a task force in Crimea, charged with bringing home a Ukrainian drug lord codenamed Pantomime. The Spanish CNI served as a partner agency in the task force, along with their Oscura Sicaria, Katalin Fiero Dahar.

  With Shan Greyson’s flash drive as a starting point, the partners spent the next two days in Kyrenia, doing online research, reaching out to sources, and learning what they could without straying too close to the target. Bridget Sumner brought up articles of incorporation for Lazar Aleksić’s company, Ragusa Logistics. Fiero explained that, in European parlance, logistics meant trucking.

  She asked about Patrick over kebabs and ouzo. “Did you ask your father about Serbian organized crime?”

  Finnigan nodded and hmm’d and focused on his food.

  The next day, the investigator from the New York State Police called and said he’d heard of a guy in Italy who maybe could help.

  “Guy’s a walking shit-show, Mickey. So no need to play nice.”

  “Thanks, man. Where can we find this guy?”

  “Milan. And Finnigan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “These child traffickers, brother …” the investigator said. “Go get ’em.”

  C07

  Hama, Syria

  Jane Koury underwent two days of orientation, alongside the photojournalist she’d met in Damascus, Tamer Awad. Tamer, she discovered, had won awards—first for his work in Egypt, then during the Syrian civil war. He would be making the trip, too, with the understanding that Jane and Tamer were working first
for her uncle’s newspaper, and then for whichever European newspaper they could freelance their work out to.

  Jane and Tamer went hiking around the city both nights, along both banks of the Orontes River, and it soon became clear that the Londoner, at five-foot-two, could out-march the tall, lanky photographer. Jane got to see the famous norias, or waterwheels, of Hama. She began writing stories, both in Arabic for her uncle and in English for Lanni Connors, who was both her best mate and a wicked-good copy editor.

  On a Wednesday, Jane and Tamer took off to meet a caravan of cars driving north with refugees, fleeing Homs in the south. It was like some sort of surreal street rally—a thousand older-model cars, all facing north, all filled with children and grandparents, furniture and luggage, dogs, and even goats.

  The caravan stopped for dinner near the ancient city of Ebla. Jane walked around the campground with Tamer in tow—he left his cameras in the Nissan. She peeled away from him from time to time to find youths to interview. She looked like a teenager and Tamer, thirty, well, he looked like a guy in his thirties. It quickly became obvious that she had better results approaching kids by herself than in tandem.

  The stories were so similar, and so depressing. Jane used the journalist’s trick of distancing herself, observing the story from afar, to keep from tearing up.

  She spoke to the Bakour family of four, huddled around a campfire and sharing lentil soup. The mother and father immediately wanted to know where she was from—her accent was fooling no one. They consented to a Western journalist talking to their children, mostly because Jane wore the hijab and looked innocuous enough.

  Mohamed, fifteen, and Amira, thirteen, told her about the bombings in Homs, and about losing their house and their school. Mohamed looked like an angry grasshopper—all arms and legs, elbows and knees, and a scowl that could melt tin. Amira showed almost no emotion; a side effect of a childhood lived in a war zone.

  Jane never touched a notebook for the first hour. During the second, she asked the parents if Tamer could join them. He dropped into the grass and set down his aging canvas camera bag with its well duct-taped shoulder strap. He cleaned lenses and fiddled with filters, listening to the stories. By the time his shutter flipped for the first time, they kids were completely used to his presence.

  Jane and Tamer spent the next two and a half hours getting the stories of Mohamed and Amira and their parents.

  Jane fought with her internal angels: She was shocked and saddened by the youths’ tale, but also profoundly fulfilled. This—this!—was journalism! This was important. This was her dream.

  Two days later, she got an Instagram that showed Lanni’s toothy grin and an email from the Irish Times, which had accepted her first proposed story on the child refugees of Homs.

  C08

  Milan, Italy

  Finnigan and Fiero arranged to meet Brad Mason, former agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, at a seedy bar in an industrial district outside Milan, close to Malpensa Airport. They’d been told that Mason was a tough guy, a ladies’ man, and well bent. He’d come under fire from his old agency for playing both sides against the middle and pocketing the profit.

  They had left the de Havilland tied up at Santa Margherita Ligure, on the northern Italian coast, and drove a rental straight north to the rendezvous. Finnigan had cooked up a story about looking for a European source for Mexican cocaine, and felt that Mason might just be the guy to help him out. For a price.

  Rather than go directly to the bar for the meeting, they staked out Mason’s place in Central Milan first. Bridget Sumner had found the address for them via the magic lantern of her desktop computer back in Kyrenia. They’d hired her for her bookkeeping skills, but she’d proven to be an adept online digger as well.

  Finnigan had used every source he knew in Italian law enforcement, so they had the guy’s background and a surveillance photo of him. Forty minutes before the meeting, they saw him stroll out of his apartment, adjusting his fly, and saunter off toward a splashy Stingray convertible.

  As soon as he was out of sight, the partners stepped out of their Renault and headed toward his place. Finnigan looked around and said, “Good cop or bad cop?”

  Fiero used an open palm to swipe hair away from her face. “I’m not any kind of cop.”

  Brad Mason arrived at the airport bar ten minutes early and staked out a place where he could watch the door. He had snorted a line in the ’Ray, cruising out to the meeting, and was feeling good, loose and ready. Profits definitely could be up this year, no question about it, and any new contact was worth making. Still, he packed the Smith & Wesson because, hell, why not?

  The potential buyer was late. Mason downed his first beer and was halfway through his second when this leggy, languid vision began walking toward the bar. She had to be five-ten, he guessed, with a mane of black hair hanging to the middle of her back, wearing a badass biker jacket and painted-on jeans. Mason hardly noticed the loser with her; some guy for sure, but he was like a planet orbiting too close to the sun; there, but you had to squint to see him.

  This, Mason thought, should be good.

  Finnigan and Fiero were late on purpose, letting him stew a bit. They entered and moved to his table, Fiero sitting to his left, Finnigan to his right, pinning him in. Finnigan was on his cell phone, saying, “Thanks, Pietro. Appreciate it.”

  He hung up and smiled. “Mason? How you doing?”

  Mason studied Finnigan, noting the couple-days’ beard growth, a messy mop of wavy hair, and world-weary slouch. He turned to Fiero, who sat with her fists jammed into the side-slit pockets of the biker jacket. She’d worn sunglasses outside and didn’t bother taking them off.

  Mason addressed her. “This is a fine day. A fine day. Buy you a drink?”

  Finnigan said, “I’m Ken. This is Barbie. Barbie, this is Brad Mason.”

  Fiero said, “Hallo, Brad Mason.”

  Mason turned Finnigan. “Something I can help you with, Ken?”

  “I think, maybe, yeah. We’re looking into human trafficking. Middle Eastern refugees moving through Serbia.”

  Mason glared at him. He had probably forty pounds on Finnigan, plus he was armed. “The fuck do I care?”

  “Word is, you know a lot about moving product on the other side of the Adriatic. The former Yugoslavia. We’re told you’re the man.”

  “That what you’re told?” Rather than wait for a response, he turned back to Fiero, who might have fallen asleep behind the shades. “Ask your boyfriend if he’ll go out, find me a pack of cigarettes, will you? I don’t mind talking to you, but—”

  “Sex workers,” Finnigan said. “Underage. Probably Middle Eastern kids, on the refugee trail, coming up through Greece. This ringing any bells?”

  Mason turned back. “No, but if you’re looking for an underage boy to play with, I might be able to hook you up. Guy like you, you should do really good in some neighborhoods around here.”

  “Yeah?” Finnigan took no umbrage. “Know anything about organized crime in Serbia?”

  “Where?”

  Fiero sighed. A Spanish sigh, like a Spanish shrug, can speak whole paragraphs. She stood, hands still in her pockets, leveraging herself upright by the strength and balance of her long legs. “D’you have any money?”

  Finnigan: “How much?”

  “Hang on.” She walked to the bar.

  Watching her walk from behind was one of the finest moments of Mason’s year to date. He downed his beer. He said, “Sorry I can’t help you, Ken.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know about Serbian gangs?”

  “Sorry.”

  Fiero returned, sunglasses hiding her eyes. “Three hundred.”

  Finnigan said, “Really? That seem high to you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Okay.” He pulled out his wallet, handed her a wad of euros. She walked back to the barte
nder, handed him the bills.

  Mason watched her ass. “That is some Prime Grade A talent there. What’re you, her brother? Her driver?”

  “I drive sometimes, yeah.”

  Mason kept his eyes on her, as she talked to the bartender. It seemed like a serious discussion.

  “What the hell is she buying for three hundred? Champagne?”

  “We live in a service economy, Mason. Not a product economy. She’s buying a service. Less and less people are making shit and selling it.” Finnigan paused, thinking. “Maybe it’s fewer and fewer.”

  Mason said, “It’s time for you to fuck off.”

  “Know the name Lazar Aleksić?”

  “Nope.”

  “Anyone in Serbia you can recommend we start with?”

  “Wish I could help, Ken.”

  Fiero was walking back now, the bartender still watching her, and also watching the two strangers in the booth. Mason said, “I don’t know who steered you my way. I don’t know anything about anything.”

  She drew her hands out of her side pockets, planted her boots shoulder-width apart, grabbed a handful of Mason’s hair at the back of his head, and drove him face-first into the table.

  Cartilage crackled. The glass of beer went flying.

  Mason found himself blinded by blood in his eyes and a searing laser of pain that ricocheted through his brain as if the interior of his skull had become a concave disco ball.

  Finnigan said, “Three hundred? For a broken nose?”

  “His bar, his prices.” Fiero yanked Mason’s head back, straining his neck.

  “God! Jesus!” He tried spitting out blood, realizing it was draining from his nose, through his nasal passage, into his gullet.

  “Serbia,” she said, her voice revealing no hint of emotion, shades hiding her eyes. “Whored-out refugee children.”

  Mason spat up a bloody gob. “I don’t know the fuck you’re—”

  She slammed her left fist into his gut and, when he hunched in, she again drove his face into the table. He felt as much as heard more cracking from his nose.