The Mobster’s Lament

by Ray Celestin

  Gabriel scrambled over the fence, dropped down onto the other side. Peered into the car. Nothing.

  He popped the trunk. It was packed. Four holdalls stuffed in tight, all ready for Faron to make his getaway. Gabriel opened them one by one: in the first were clothes, in the second guns and a machete, in the third and fourth were two million dollars cash.

  Gabriel thought about waiting there for Faron, in the shadows of the alleyway, killing him when he returned from killing Cleveland. But then he thought about Sarah, he thought about the Doc’s note. He who wishes revenge will live in misery.

  He pulled the two bags out of the trunk, closed it, walked over to the fence. With first one bag and then the other, he scrambled up and managed to toss the bags onto the snow on the other side.

  He ran over to the De Soto, threw the bags in. Hauled north.

  Twenty minutes later he was on Central Park West, pulling up outside the Majestic. He ran in, told the concierge to call Costello’s apartment.

  ‘Mr Costello’s out,’ the concierge said.

  ‘It’s Mrs Costello I want. Tell her it’s Gabriel. Tell her I’m waiting for her in the lobby. She has to come down.’

  The concierge frowned, then put the call through. Gabriel went to the car and lugged the two holdalls in, dumped them on the floor.

  A couple of minutes later the elevator opened and Bobbie walked out, dressed in slacks and a sweater. She looked him up and down. He still had Bova smeared across him, dust from Faron’s hideout.

  ‘Gabby,’ she said, doing a good job of suppressing her shock, ‘what are you doing here? Frank’s out.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  Gabriel shrugged.

  ‘I heard they’re gonna come after you,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve already started. There’s something I need you to do for me.’

  He gestured to the holdalls at his feet. ‘There’s two million dollars in those. Frank’s money. He asked me to find it for him. Get the concierge to take them up in the elevator for you. Give ’em to Frank.’

  She looked at the holdalls uncertainly, nodded.

  ‘What do you want in return?’ she asked.

  ‘Sarah stays out of it,’ Gabriel said. ‘I’m leaving New York. Sarah’s going to stay, with our housekeeper. I want your word, that no one ever bothers her, no one ever uses her to come after me. She gets to live in safety.’

  He looked at her, saw her expression soften, going from apprehensive to pitying. Childless Bobbie, who was always asking after Sarah.

  ‘I trust you, Bobbie,’ he said. ‘I know if you give me your word, it’ll happen. You’ll get Frank to promise. And if you get Frank to promise, it’ll happen.’

  She nodded, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Sure, Gabby. I give you my word. Sarah’ll be safe.’

  59

  Thursday 13th, 9.00 p.m.

  Thursday 13th. Nine p.m. The hour Gabriel’s life had been geared to for the last six years. The point when his escape plan was supposed to kick into action, the faked break-in and disappearance. So many years of planning and where was he? Driving through a blizzard to pick up Sarah with half the underworld after him. Costello’s job had been his undoing. If it wasn’t for the job, he wouldn’t have learned Faron was back in town, wouldn’t have tried the stupid trick at the airport, wouldn’t have frittered all his plans away with bad judgment.

  When he got to 59th, he parked up and ran across the street, rang Michael’s apartment, spoke to Ida on the intercom and she buzzed him in. When he got to the apartment, he saw the door was slightly ajar, Ida standing behind it, a gun in her hand.

  She let him in, and he entered a cramped living room, saw Sarah curled up on the sofa, asleep.

  ‘Did you fix it?’ she asked.

  Gabriel nodded, turned to look at her.

  ‘I fixed it,’ he said. ‘I fixed it with Costello so it’s safe for Sarah to stay in New York. She’ll stay with our housekeeper. I go on the run, Sarah gets to carry on with her life. Once Costello puts the word out, she’ll be safe.’

  He felt Ida studying him, wondering what he’d done to secure Sarah’s safety. He prayed she wouldn’t ask him what it was, and she didn’t.

  ‘So what happens until Costello gets the word out?’ she asked.

  ‘She has to lay low.’

  Ida nodded, and Gabriel noticed a restlessness in Ida, energy itching to get out.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I know where Cleveland is,’ she said.

  And it took a while for the words to register in Gabriel’s head.

  ‘You told me Benny Siegel was looking for Cleveland too, right?’ she said.

  Gabriel nodded.

  ‘Well, what if he found him?’ she said. ‘What if Siegel found Cleveland but he never told anyone?’

  Gabriel paused, realization spreading through him like a warm glow.

  ‘Where’d he put him?’ Ida continued. ‘A junkie he wanted to keep safe.’

  He grinned. ‘A drying-out clinic,’ he said.

  ‘We never thought to check the high-end hospitals, the private clinics, ’cos how could Cleveland afford them?’

  ‘He couldn’t,’ said Gabriel. ‘But Benny Siegel could.’

  Flashes of Benny’s apartment in East Harlem. The roaches in the ashtray, the needle and dope in the sideboard. Benny had found Cleveland and had hidden him in the apartment, then, when Benny was going back to LA, he’d moved Cleveland out to the clinic. That’s why Cleveland had left his dope stash in the apartment. Where else would a junkie be going where he didn’t need his dope but a drying-out clinic?

  ‘I got a musician friend,’ said Ida. ‘His manager knows a place. Expensive, secretive, one that takes colored people. I called him, I’m just waiting on the address.’

  A memory surfaced – Benny’s driver saying he visited Joe Glaser. Glaser had a drying-out place he used for his clients. Benny had gone there for a recommendation. Then Gabriel remembered something else.

  ‘I know where the place is,’ he said. ‘Benny’s driver told me he visited a clinic uptown. I figured Benny must have caught something, but it must have been to put Cleveland in there.’

  ‘You know the address?’ Ida asked.

  ‘Riverside Drive,’ he said. ‘Just near the George Washington Bridge.’

  ‘You said Faron had a job on tonight?’ Ida said. ‘Maybe the snow has slowed them down. Maybe they’ve called it off till tomorrow. Maybe we’ve still got a chance. I’m going to head up there.’

  ‘On your own?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘If I have to. I called Michael’s friend at the hospital, the cop, left a message for him to come get me.’

  Gabriel saw the despair on her face, the sense that her last chance to save Michael’s son was slipping away. How long ago did she figure out where Cleveland was? And she couldn’t leave the apartment because she was waiting for him to get back and take Sarah, and all the while the snow was piling up on the streets.

  ‘Ida, that clinic’s all the way uptown. Getting Michael’s friend from the hospital? He won’t be able to make it in this weather. I barely got here myself and I’ve got snow tires on the car. Plus if he comes to get you, he’ll be leaving Michael unprotected.’

  ‘Then I’ll go there on my own.’

  ‘How? There’re no cabs, no buses, the subways aren’t working. The El sure as hell won’t be.’

  ‘Then I’ll walk.’

  Gabriel stared at her, suppressed a sigh. Tried to think. Tried to come up with a plan and surprised himself by doing so.

  ‘I’ve got friends on the PD,’ he said. ‘People I trust. They’re based uptown. Not far from the clinic. I can tell them to go and pick up Cleveland, put him in protective custody.’

  ‘I have to be there, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘I can’t trust this to strangers.’

  Despair suffused her features once more, was in her voice too, making her words quiver, her natural poise now str
etched to its limit.

  ‘I’ll call my friends,’ said Gabriel. ‘And then I’ll drive you up there. Drop you off.’

  ‘No,’ said Ida. ‘You need to lay low till the weather clears up.’

  ‘I’ll drop you off there and then I’ll lay low.’

  ‘And what about Sarah?’

  ‘I’ll take her with me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s safer than leaving her alone,’ said Gabriel. ‘I take you there, the cops arrive, then Sarah and me leave. We go find a hotel to hide out in.’

  ‘And what if Faron decides to attack Cleveland while we’re there?’

  ‘What are the chances? You said it yourself, Ida, the snow’s probably slowed them down. They’ve probably put the hit off till tomorrow.’

  He paused to let the logic of what he was saying sink in.

  ‘Michael nearly died saving Sarah’s life,’ he added. ‘You have to let me help his son in return.’

  They stared at each other, Ida desperate to accept his help, Gabriel desperate to give it.

  ‘Uncle Gabby,’ a voice said.

  They both turned to see Sarah had awoken, was sitting up on the sofa staring up at them. Gabriel smiled at her. She jumped off the sofa and over to Gabriel and clasped him in a hug. Tears streamed down her face and Gabriel felt her warmth against him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  Ten minutes later, all three of them were in the De Soto, ploughing through the storm, its fog lamps making golden tunnels through the snowfall. They had to navigate accidents, rubberneckers, cars abandoned in the middle of the road. They were barely making five miles an hour. Further uptown the conditions were even worse – the snow had settled more thickly, had buried the city, enveloped it in an eerie stillness that made it feel like they were driving through the necropolis of Gabriel’s nightmares.

  Eventually, they made it all the way to Riverside Drive. They drove along it, gradually climbing the high ridge on which it was built. They passed under the bridge and the incline increased sharply. They passed a row of red-brick apartment blocks. And there, just beyond them, was the clinic. It was the only low-rise building Gabriel could see, maybe the only townhouse on that stretch of Washington Heights which hadn’t been replaced by a modern block. It was set in its own garden, a railing marking its perimeter. A peaceful, luxurious place to kick a narcotics addiction, high up on the cliffs overlooking the river.

  ‘That’s it,’ Gabriel said.

  He drove past it and parked the car a half-block further down the narrow street, in the middle of a row of cars that had been turned into a lumpen bank by the snow. He killed the engine, looked behind him, through the rear window. On one side of the road was the clinic, on the other an embankment that dropped steeply to the Henry Hudson Parkway, and towering over the road in the distance was the giant shadow of the bridge, arching over Manhattan all the way to New Jersey.

  They waited. After a while an unmarked police cruiser approached up the street. It stopped a few cars away. Ida and Gabriel both got their guns ready. Gabriel checked the rearview mirror and caught Sarah’s eye, saw how hard she was trying not to look scared. He gave her an it’s OK look and then he flashed the lights. Two men got out of the cruiser, walked over, got in the backseat next to Sarah, both of them wiping snow from their hair.

  Salzman looked at Gabriel and nodded.

  ‘Ida Young,’ said Gabriel, ‘this is Lieutenant Detective Salzman, from the NYPD’s Narcotics Squad.’

  Salzman nodded at Ida. ‘This is Lieutenant Gallo,’ said Salzman, introducing his colleague, a tall, young detective in a tan raincoat.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Ida said.

  Salzman shrugged off her thanks. ‘Gabriel explained on the phone,’ he said. ‘The witness is inside?’

  ‘We think so,’ said Ida. ‘He’s got a history as a pusher, too, so I guess you could bring him in under that.’

  ‘All right,’ said Salzman. ‘We’ve got some beat cops coming, but what with the weather, they’ve been delayed. We’ll go in there now and get the witness into custody, then the beat cops’ll guard the place in case anyone tries to attack it. Sound good?’

  Ida nodded.

  Salzman turned to look at Gabriel. ‘I heard about what went down,’ he said.

  Gabriel figured he meant the contract, his imminent life on the run. ‘It happens,’ he said.

  ‘Good luck,’ Salzman said.

  ‘Thanks, buddy.’

  Salzman nodded, then turned to look at Ida and Gallo. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  Salzman and Gallo got out of the car.

  Ida turned to look at Gabriel, then at Sarah.

  ‘Thank you, both,’ she said.

  ‘Go get him,’ Gabriel said.

  Ida nodded, stepped out into the yowling blizzard, and within a few seconds, she was lost from sight.

  Gabriel stared at the snow spinning about through the orange gloom of the street lights. He wondered if Ida would be safe if Faron attacked the clinic, just her and Salzman and Gallo. He debated waiting for the beat cops to arrive.

  ‘How much did you hear in the apartment?’ Gabriel asked.

  Sarah frowned. ‘I heard you talking about coming up here,’ she said.

  ‘Did you hear me talking about leaving town?’

  She shook her head.

  He paused. ‘I’m gonna be leaving town, Sarah. And you’re gonna be staying.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can stay here in New York, with Mrs Hirsch,’ said Gabriel. ‘I fixed it so they won’t come after you to get to me. You’ll be safe here in New York. I’ll leave. You can carry on your life here.’

  Tears welled up in her eyes, and Gabriel felt his own eyes beginning to water.

  ‘I’m sorry I tried to control everything,’ he said. ‘It’s all my fault. Always has been.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I want to come with you,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not going to be like how I planned. It’s not a clean break anymore. I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. But you don’t have to live like that. I’ve messed up your life too much already, Sarah. I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head again. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said. ‘You can’t just dump me here like this. You’re all the family I’ve got.’

  His heart wrenched. He leaned over the seat and they hugged, and they stayed like that a while.

  ‘Let’s go find a hotel to stay in till the weather dies down,’ he said.

  Sarah smiled.

  Gabriel started the car and inched out into the narrow street. Just as they were about to turn the corner, Gabriel happened to look in the rearview mirror, saw headlights glimmering on the road behind him.

  60

  Thursday 13th, 10.03 p.m.

  Ida trudged towards the clinic through the whirling wind and the clumps of snow hurtling through the air. She hadn’t realized how bad it was while she was in the cocoon of Gabriel’s car. The two cops eyed her, then they pushed open the gate set into the railings and went through a front garden that was nothing more than an undulating sea of snow.

  They went up the front steps to the porch and rang the bell. Waited.

  The door was opened by a tall, middle-aged woman, thin-faced, her hair in a severe, shoulder-length bob.

  Salzman held up his police badge.

  ‘NYPD, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes?’ she said, a slight frown knitting her brow.

  ‘We have reasons to believe one of your residents is wanted in connection with a series of murders. We also have reason to believe some men are coming here to attack him.’

  ‘Good lord.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I believe he is.’

  The woman stared at them, confused and perturbed.

  ‘Please, come in out of the cold,’ she said eventually, in a surprisingly warm voice. ‘I’ll get the director for you. He’s not been able to leave on account of the snow.’

&nbs
p; They stepped into a broad, high-ceilinged hallway. There were white tiles on the floor, and whitewashed walls and the space was filled with antique furniture. Ida got the impression of a clinic trying very hard not to look like a clinic.

  The woman led them through the hall and down a corridor. At its far end she stopped and knocked on a door.

  ‘Wait here, please,’ she said, and stepped inside. A few seconds passed and the door opened. The woman exited with a rotund man in his fifties, sporting thick glasses and a scruffy mop of brown hair.

  ‘I’m Dr Howard,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  Salzman flashed his badge again and repeated what he’d told the woman at the door.

  ‘What’s this resident’s name?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘Gene Cleveland,’ said Salzman. ‘But he probably checked in under an alias. His treatment was paid for by Benjamin Siegel.’

  Recognition flashed across the man’s face. Then his expression hardened.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Do you have a warrant?’

  ‘No,’ said Salzman. ‘We wouldn’t be able to get one until tomorrow morning, but since we have reason to believe men are coming here tonight, I think it’s in everyone’s interest if you let us speak to the man, see if he won’t come into custody voluntarily, for his own safety. Some beat cops from our precinct are on their way here to protect you in any case.’

  The doctor looked at Salzman, considered.

  ‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘Wait in the lounge. I’ll go and speak to him.’

  The doctor led them back down the corridor and up two flights of stairs to a large room littered with high-ticket sofas and armchairs, bookcases, games tables, all in front of a bank of windows which looked out onto the snowstorm beyond.

  The doctor left, and they waited.

  Gallo collapsed into an armchair, lit a cigarette, looked at the ornate ceiling above him.

  ‘Nicest damn clinic I ever saw,’ he said.

  Ida thought about Michael in his room downtown, the mask attached to his face.

  She walked over to the windows, looked through them at the bridge arcing through the sky, disappearing into the blizzard, the steep, tree-lined drop to the river far below. A couple of minutes later the doctor returned in the company of a skinny, gaunt-looking colored man, dressed in slacks and a thick, woolen sweater. Ida looked him up and down and felt a sense of disappointment. He was completely unremarkable in all respects.