by Bob Mayer
He went to the door, but Tucker’s words paused him.
“Damon did give us something on this IRA team. Whatever they’re planning to do, it will happen soon. It will be in the city. That was another reason he said no to them. He didn’t like to shit where he ate.”
Kane bit. “How soon?”
Shaw answered. “That was one thing he was specific about. Midnight, Wednesday next week. The 10th.”
“That’s very specific,” Kane granted. “Why then?”
“He didn’t know,” Tucker said.
Kane looked over his shoulder. “Did Damon give you anything about this team beyond that? Composition? A target?”
Tucker and Shaw exchanged a glance once more. Tucker nodded and Shaw answered. “He said this team called themselves the Swords of Saint Patrick. We checked and there’s no intel on that term. He said they would go around him since he said no. Go directly to NORAID for money. And arms merchants for the gear they wanted. He mentioned a place where they would probably make contact with NORAID.”
Kane folded his arms, waiting for the reason he was here.
Tucker spoke. “A bar in the Bronx. Kelly’s. On Broadway.”
“Under the El,” Kane said, referring to the elevated subway. “Across from Van Cortlandt.”
“You know the place?” Tucker asked.
“Yeah. But I haven’t been there since high school.”
“They raise a lot of money for NORAID,” Shaw said. “And Damon said it’s the place in the city where one can make contact with the group.”
“Other than him,” Kane reminded them. “But he’s past tense.”
“We want you to—” Tucker began but Kane cut him off by opening the door.
“Since you studied my background you do know something about me. I did my duty for the country and got screwed. This is your job. Your problem. You made the devil’s bargain with Damon. You better get to work.” He left.
SOHO, MANHATTAN
“Hey, buddy! Got a cig?” The old man stepped in Kane’s path, unusually aggressive for a panhandler, even in New York. Kane was twelve blocks and ten minutes from the Jacob Javits Federal Center, walking north along Hudson Street, having crossed Canal and passing over the eastern terminus of the Holland Tunnel.
“I don’t—” Kane began, but as the old man’s eyes shifted past him, Kane reached for the forty-five and was turning, but a tad late. Stars exploded as something hard slammed into the side of his head.
It wasn’t a TKO, but close. Kane went to his knees, still trying to draw his pistol, vaguely aware that the old man was running away. Someone wrapped Kane in a bear, more a grizzly hug around the chest, powerful arms, one of them covered in a cast bent at the elbow, which explained the ‘something hard’. Kane was dragged to the curb where a black limousine awaited. He was tossed inside and someone snatched the gun out of the holster. He got his first look at his attacker and understood who and what he’d been hit with: Matteo, Sofia Cappucci’s enforcer, and the weapon was his right arm in a cast covering from above his elbow to the wrist. The result of his last run in with Kane. There was a sort of irony in that, which Kane didn’t pursue at the moment.
Matteo pushed into the back seat, shoving Kane farther inside.
Kane shook his head and blinked, trying to focus. That wasn’t helped by the dim interior, the result of heavily tinted windows. There were four people across from him, seated facing rearwards. Two had guns trained on him, so Kane didn’t go for the knife in the small of his back. There was a powerful odor which Kane couldn’t place, but made him slightly nauseous.
“Can you hear me?” Sofia Cappucci asked, her heavy Brooklyn accent a bit echoey. “I said I wanted to talk to him, Matteo.”
“Sorry.” Matteo didn’t sound sorry at all. “He can hear you. He’s still conscious.”
“Kane?” Cappucci asked.
Kane focused and now there were only two facing him, her and a guy with a gun. He was smaller than Matteo’s six and a half feet, but the only size that mattered was that of the bullet in the pistol.
“What?” Kane said. His eyes were adjusting and the stars fading away. He’d been hit worse sparring but that didn’t make it hurt less.
Matteo jabbed his elbow, his good one, into Kane’s right side. Hard. “Talk nice to the lady.”
“Right,” Kane said. “What Mrs. Delgado?”
Matteo repeated his nudge. “It’s Ms. Cappucci, asshole.”
“Right.”
“Enough,” the recently widowed Mrs. Alfonso Delgado said. “I’ve decided my maiden name is more appropriate. Don’t you think?”
Despite the heat outside, she had a fur coat draped over her Rubenesque figure. Which explained the air conditioner running full blast. She had black hair, made up in what looked like a pile to Kane, but his women’s hair fashion sense was on par with his knowledge of ancient Greek, although he did know a smattering of Latin from his altar boy days. Her face seemed to glow, the result of heavy make-up, covering the remnants of bruises from a beating her recently departed husband had inflicted, and her lips were bright red. The beating had brought about Alfonso’s death sentence by Sofia’s father, the Don of the Cappucci family.
Kane nodded. “Sure. Good idea. Sounds much nicer, Ms. Cappucci.”
The limo was moving north, slowly negotiating the double-parked trucks in the rundown Soho neighborhood.
“You been on my mind lately,” Cappucci said. “And I was in the neighborhood and then Matteo sees you walking and I thought, how fortunate. I figured we’d give you a lift. Isn’t that nice of me?”
“Sure,” Kane said. “Fortunate me.” He figured she’d been at the Triangle Social Club on Sullivan Street, which was only six blocks north. “How is Vinny the Chin?”
Matteo’s elbow indicated another social faux pas. “That’s Mister Gigante to you.”
Sofia Cappucci laughed. “Pretending to be crazy, as always. Crazy as a fox. He knows the FBI got eyes and ears all around him. Some people think he really is nuts. Who knows? He can act sharp when he needs and that’s all that counts.”
Vincent ‘the Chin’ Gigante, who had worked for Vito Genovese and was now boss in his own right, was well known in Manhattan for wandering the streets of Greenwich Village in his bathrobe and slippers. Preparation for a potential insanity defense in case he got pinched.
“Might be the wrong medication?” Kane suggested. “I’ve heard that—”
Matteo’s elbow interrupted his medical advice.
“There you were,” Sofia continued, “walking along and I took it as a sign.”
“Like a biblical sign? I’ve never been accused of that.” Kane leaned forward and looked past Matteo. “Kinda weird, though, that I was walking uptown and you were heading in the same direction when the Triangle is in that direction.” He pointed the way they were going. “Were you lost?”
Matteo stuck out his good arm, heavily muscled, and pushed Kane back.
“Quinn said you were smart tactically and stupid strategically,” Sofia Cappucci said. “Now, if I was around who I’m usually around, I’d have to pretend I don’t understand those two terms.” She dumped the Brooklyn accent. “But between you and me, I’ve got two undergraduate majors from Princeton; history and economics. I wanted to go to graduate school but my father needed me.”
“It’s good to be needed, Ms. Cappucci,” Kane said.
She glanced to the side, then looked back at Kane. The Brooklyn was back. “Yeah. You’ve comprehended the tactical situation. This wasn’t random. Now, tell me, what’s the strategic?”
Kane shrugged, his ribs aching. “You’re right. I don’t know that. I assume it has something to do with Quinn?”
“You’re still thinking tactical,” Sofia said. “He was just a tool.”
“I guess so,” Kane said. “I’ve been hit in the head a lot, including recently, which doesn’t help.” He pointed at the tip of the scar extending out from under hair on the right side. “Even got shot in
it. I think it affected me.”
“Matteo wants to kill you,” Sofia said. “Given that you hurt him, that should be his right. Why not apologize? I think he’ll accept an apology.”
Kane glanced to his right. “Sorry.”
Sofia Cappucci gave a deep, disappointed sigh. “That was weak.”
“Really sorry?” Kane tried. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?”
The daughter of the Boss of the Cappucci crime family shook her head. “Quinn also said you were a smart ass.” She waved a hand, dismissing that line of discussion. “By the way, do you know where Quinn is?”
“Last I saw him, you were there,” Kane said, referring to the encounter at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she’d been brought after the beating. Alfonso Delgado had been found dead the next day, the result of a concrete enema. It was also where Kane had dislocated Matteo’s elbow. “He informed me we had no more business between us and I was good with that. You remember.”
“I wish I believed you,” she said. She reached into her large purse and extracted a plastic bag containing a small gun with a bulky suppressor. “Recognize?”
“It’s a pistol,” Kane said. He’d assumed Quinn had some sort of backup plan because people trained like both of them, Special Forces and SAS, always had backup plans. Which reminded him he had no backup plan at the moment.
She tossed it on the seat between her and the guy with the gun. “Quinn told me it was yours.”
“I used to own one like that,” Kane admitted.
Sofia Cappucci looked over her shoulder. “Park,” she ordered the driver.
The limo pulled over, cutting off drivers, earning horn blasts, and halted.
“Everyone out,” Sofia ordered.
Matteo looked as if he were about to protest, but he joined the driver and gunman in exiting. As soon as all the doors were solidly shut, Sofia Cappucci pointed a finger tipped with a bright red nail at Kane, who wondered if she got her nails done at the same place as Toni.
“It’s the gun that killed Cibosky.” The accent was gone. “He wasn’t a made-man, but he was part of our crew. I could have you tossed in the East River for that. And for what you did to Matteo, who is a made man I should have you tossed in.”
“You could have me killed for whatever reason you want,” Kane pointed out. “I didn’t kill Cibosky. Quinn did.”
“Why would he have done that?”
“So the cops would think it was me. Quinn stole that gun from my Jeep. My prints are on it and the shell casings.”
“I give it to the cops, you’re in trouble.” It was not a question.
“It would cause some discomfort,” Kane admitted, “but I don’t think a solid case, especially given what happened to your late husband and the lack of chain of custody.”
“You’re full of shit. Where’s Quinn? Last I saw him was the day of the Blackout. He said he had business with Sean Damon. Turns out Damon and those Irish pigs of his are dead. Burned up that night. There’s another body found with them and hasn’t been identified. Is that Quinn?”
“You’re as up to speed on that as I am,” Kane said. “Probably ahead of me, but I’m trying to catch up. I think you found me just now because you were at the Triangle and someone at the FBI called you. Although how some Fed has the number for the phone in there raises all sorts of interesting questions. They told you I was at FBI HQ and leaving, probably heading home. Was it Tucker or Shaw?”
“The old men in the club,” Sofia said, referring to the Triangle social club, “think I only get in the door and am allowed to sit at the table because of my father and who my husband was. They thought he was an idiot, my ex, that is. And they were right. Thus, they don’t think too much of me. I’m the only woman in there. They talk around me, over me, under me, to me, but never with me.”
“Their mistake,” Kane said.
“Yeah.” She peered at him under thick lashes. “Quinn was very good at what he did. My grandfather appreciated him and then my father. As did I. But there was something off about him. What men fail to realize is that women see the world differently. We perceive another side of people and evaluate them with a different set of standards. And when you are, let us politely say, intimate with someone, you learn things about them.”
Kane remained silent, waiting for the proverbial high heel to fall. Horns blared, trucks, busses and cars rumbled by outside the limo, but the two of them were in a bubble of Brooklyn mafia princess, red fingernails, a cloying perfume Kane was becoming more aware of, and possible execution at the order of the owner of all the above.
“Quinn had something going on,” Sofia Cappucci said. “Something besides the family business. Is that true?”
“I don’t know what the family business is specifically, nor do I know what he was up to.”
“You’re a bad liar,” she said. “He’d disappear at night. Be gone for a while. Come back and I could tell he was—” Sofia searched her Princeton education for a term, then settled on—"aroused. The kind that comes from violence. It emanated off of him. His blood was up.”
Kane knew what the violence was: prostitutes Quinn tortured brutally and then beheaded. And as a final sick touch, blowtorched their heads. Their pictures graced the wall at the Omega Task Force at the One-oh-Nine Precinct along with the other ‘multiples’ who weren’t receiving anywhere near the attention the victims of Son of Sam were.
“He had crazy eyes,” Kane said. “I could see that.”
“Oh yes,” Sofia said. “Picked up on that the moment I met him. Quite a few of my associates sport them.” She leaned forward slightly. “Do I have them? What did you think when you saw me with Toni at Studio 54?”
“You’re not crazy,” Kane said, hoping his words were true. “You’re angry.”
Sofia Cappucci sat back and gave a very slight nod. “Interesting. Perhaps Quinn underestimated you.”
“Do I have crazy eyes?” Kane asked.
Sofia cocked her head. “No.”
“That’s good to know.”
But Sofia wasn’t done. “You act crazy at times, Kane. But your eyes? You got sad eyes. About the saddest I’ve ever seen.”
Kane didn’t respond.
She shifted the topic. “How much do you make working for Toni?”
“I don’t view it as work,” Kane said. “I help her out when she needs it. We go back a long way.”
“To West Point and her late brother, who was your best friend.” Sofia nodded. “Loyalty is good. One cannot purchase loyalty. But one can purchase services.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kane said.
She frowned but said: “Go ahead.”
“How much did Toni tell you about me?”
“It would be impolite for me to betray a confidence,” Sofia said.
“That’s exactly why I’m asking.”
“Not much, but enough,” Sofia said. “She didn’t mean to but she is a very lonely person. Champagne on top of coke is never good. I don’t touch the stuff myself and I worry about Toni. She’s got a problem, but otherwise she’s sharp. She’s been going through a hard time. She’ll have to figure that problem out on her own.”
“She has her reasons to be messed up,” Kane said.
“Don’t we all?” Sofia said, but she was on task. “I’d like to avail myself of your services occasionally.”
“What services?”
“Negotiating. Investigating. The last time I talked to Quinn, he was approaching Damon about the Westway project and our share.”
Kane shook his head. “I’m not getting involved in Westway.”
Sofia waved a dismissive hand. “Since Damon is out of the picture, that’s going to be a mess until we see who rises from the ashes. With Bella Azbug ahead in the polls, it might be a non-issue because if she’s in City Hall it will never happen.” She shook her head. “Westway? Too many were counting on it as a done deal. But another opportunity presents itself. Damon’s people had been blocking Vito Genovese, and now Vinn
y the Chin and his crew, from getting a piece of the old Penn Central rail yard on the west side. The Irish claim it’s their territory.”
“I believe the gang Damon came from called themselves the Westies. And the rail yards are on the west side.”
Sofia smiled. “They can call themselves ‘fucked’ now without Damon to protect them. The city’s possibly going to put a convention center there. Lots of contracts will be forthcoming and the family will get our taste. But I’ve done some research and there’s the issue of the ownership of the land.”
“Who has it?” Kane asked, since it was better to keep her speaking about deals than contemplating reasons to kill him.
“Don’t worry about that right now. I want a solid piece of the ground while everyone else is still figuring out what to do with Damon out of the picture.”
“You personally?”
“Enough questions,” Sofia said. Brooklyn was back. “You gonna do some work for me?”
“If I say no?”
She reached over and tapped the gun in the plastic bag. “Maybe you should think about it.”
“You have a convincing argument,” Kane said. He leaned forward. “I wouldn’t trust Tucker or Shaw. Whichever one called you.”
Sofia laughed. “I don’t trust nobody. I didn’t trust Quinn. He had secrets.”
“Don’t we all?” Kane asked. “You hear anything about IRA hitters in the city?”
Sofia answered with a question. “That what happened to Damon? He double-cross them on one of his weapons deals? Skim some of their money?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard rumors that they’re in town and planning something.”
“Irish and planning in the same sentence? That’ll be the day. I haven’t heard nothing. What kind of something? A heist?”
“No idea. But people might get hurt. Innocent people.”