Blood Money

by Tom Bradby

  They waited. Quinn watched his father’s granite face. He could see why Yan had been pleased to have this man beside him.

  Gerry wound down the window. ‘Don’t let them get away from the automobile,’ he said.

  The Buick rode to a halt. One of the men opened the door to get out. ‘Now,’ Gerry whispered. ‘Now!’

  Quinn gunned the Gardner’s engine and stamped the pedal to the floor.

  The automobile roared and lunged forward. It screamed out of the warehouse and slammed into the side of the Buick. Quinn hit the steering-wheel with the force of the impact, but kept his foot on the gas. The Gardner roared still louder as the shrieking wail of metal against metal rent the night air.

  The man had rolled clear. He hollered in alarm and swung his machine-gun up in a slow arc. Gerry put his arm out of the window, took aim and loosed off a single shot. The dark figure crumpled.

  The driver of the Buick grasped too late what was happening. He struggled to get across to the other side of the automobile and escape, but the Gardner was powerful and shifted the Buick to the edge of the pier. ‘Keep going!’ Gerry yelled.

  Quinn pitched the Buick straight into the icy water.

  He reversed up, killed the headlamps.

  The silence was deafening.

  They got out, walked to the edge of the pier and watched the Buick slide beneath the dark water. They waited to see if the man would free himself and break the surface, but the ocean swallowed its metal gift without a murmur.

  The sea was still again. They heard the hoot of a steamship coming into dock further down the wharf.

  ‘Should we call the cops?’ Gerry said.

  ‘I heard they don’t like to get their feet wet.’

  They returned to the Gardner and drove back towards the terminal entrance. As they inched through the Norwegian colony outside its gates, a group of sailors blocked their path. They were singing loudly, drunk and good-humoured. One or two bashed the hood. Gerry raised a hand and smiled. Just beyond them, he tapped Quinn’s shoulder to ask him to pull over. He opened the door. ‘Where are you going?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘Find Martha, Joe. If they get to her, nothing will have been worth anything.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Finish what I should have started a long time ago.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You and I will travel better alone.’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘Joe, you know what they tried to do to Martha in that hotel room.’ Gerry’s eyes were cold. ‘I need you to make sure they don’t find her.’

  ‘If we hooked up with La Guardia and Goldberg, we could bust them wide open.’

  ‘It’s too late for that.’

  Gerry stepped out of the automobile and slammed the door. Quinn leant over and wound down the window. ‘Yan and I have a place to go,’ Gerry said, ‘so don’t worry about us tonight. Tomorrow it will be over.’

  And before his son could say another word, he had melted into the crowd.

  Quinn parked in a narrow alley by West Fifth, next to the bathhouse where they had once changed for the beach. The rain had eased, so he stepped onto the boardwalk and followed the lights back towards Manhattan. Even at this time of night, Coney Island was a huge discordant cacophony. The crowd shuffled to the music of two dozen jazz bands in dance halls and honkytonks. The air was thick with the aroma of popcorn, cotton candy, Jewish potato cakes and frankfurters. Couples strolled arm in arm and children scampered through the shadows.

  He made his way past the penny arcades, chop-suey parlours, carousels, bath-houses, shooting galleries and freak shows which popped up one after another all the way down the strip. He looked into the store where Martha had liked to buy custard pies and screwballs, then turned right into Luna Park, past the big saltwater pool that lay beneath a ride called the Dragon’s Gorge. He got on board and, as the carriage hit the top of the first rise, surveyed the crowd below.

  He saw a fleet of sleek automobiles roll down Surf. The convoy came to a halt and a dozen men got out and moved into the crowd. O’Reilly and Hegarty were in the lead.

  When the ride came full circle, he climbed out and hurried back to the boardwalk. The crowd was thick, the cries of the barkers more insistent. A lurid billboard advertised the waxwork Chamber of Horrors and cries from revellers on the Loop-o-Plane carried on the wind.

  He caught sight of Hegarty’s fedora and quickened his pace. He reached Feltman’s and looked through the window at a group of Bavarian folk singers dancing the Schuplatt’l on a makeshift stage. He turned. A ferry had tied up at the pier. Two kids on roller-skates crashed into him. ‘Hey …’

  Hegarty scanned the crowd behind him with two of his men. Others joined them, their heads bent close in conversation.

  They split up again.

  Quinn dodged through the shadows and ducked into a dark lane beyond the steamboat pier. He kept moving until the noise of the seafront faded, then leant against some wooden boarding to catch his breath.

  He navigated his way around a series of tight corners to a row of ramshackle wooden houses with wide balconies. Number thirty was boarded up. Blue paint peeled in great strips from neglected walls. A sign saying ‘Long Island Realty’ had been pinned to the door. He climbed over a makeshift barrier onto the porch.

  The bench where they had once sat and waited for the rain to cease had been broken. The little palm tree had gone and the lamp above was covered with spiders’ webs. The sign announcing this was a kuch alein guesthouse had faded with age. The door had already been forced. He eased it open and stepped into a hallway with black-and-white flooring and walls of varnished burlap.

  In the half-darkness, the place seemed suddenly to reverberate with their laughter. He could see the sand from the beach between their toes, the wooden spades and metal buckets. He could smell the potato cakes and cotton candy.

  He could feel her hand in his.

  A shutter banged in the breeze.

  He moved to the bottom of the stairs and climbed noiselessly. On the top floor, a breath of sea air cooled his cheeks.

  Uneven boards creaked beneath his feet.

  She stood by a window. Lights from Luna Park lit her face. Her skin was damp with rain.

  The sound of a ship’s horn drifted up from the Narrows. As children, they had listened to his mother in her more lucid moments conjure from this window an exotic world far beyond these shores in the passage of the great steamships: spruce from Norway, figs from Egypt, tea from China …

  The lights blinked. Screams carried on the night air.

  ‘Don’t come in here, Joe,’ she said.

  ‘They’re looking for you. They believe you can identify some of the faces in that room in the Plaza.’

  ‘Then they’ll find me sooner or later. Please don’t come any further.’ He ignored her. She faced him, dark eyes searching his. ‘I can’t destroy him. I … can’t. You know that. You must know that.’

  He came closer still. Her breath caressed his cheek. They leant against each other. He could feel her heart beating. Her hand sought his. She wove their fingers together, then rested her forehead against his lips. ‘God, Joe …’

  Quinn heard voices. He caught a glimpse of Hegarty’s fedora on the pavement below. O’Reilly was right behind him.

  ‘This is what the guy was talking about. These are the kuch aleins,’ O’Reilly said. ‘My sister used to own one.’

  ‘Did we get a number?’ Hegarty hissed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to check the whole damned row.’

  Quinn heard the crunch of a boot on the porch and the creak of the front door. He pulled Martha close against the wall. She slipped her arms around him. Doors were opened and closed on the ground floor. They heard whispered voices, then footsteps going down into the basement.

  They waited. She slid behind him and he could feel the thump of her heart in his back.

  The men returned to the ground floor.
>
  Boots scuffed the stairs. Martha’s fingers gripped Quinn’s ribs. He fumbled for his revolver, looked up and spotted the trap-door to the attic.

  He slipped his revolver back into his coat, put a finger to his lips and pointed up at the hatch.

  Martha cupped her hands for his foot. She was strong and just held his weight, swaying as he strengthened his grip on the edge of the frame. He pushed up the hatch and slid it back.

  They heard footsteps in the corridor.

  One of the men was in the next room.

  Quinn pulled himself into the loft, then swung around and stretched out his arm. He hauled her up by the wrists until she had her elbows on the ledge, then lifted her through the gap.

  One of the men was in the corridor again.

  Quinn pushed her out of sight but didn’t have time to get the hatch back into place.

  They heard footsteps below them. ‘You figure we should check up there?’ O’Reilly said.

  ‘Forget it. We’ll be here all night.’

  One moved to the window. ‘You smell that?’ O’Reilly asked. ‘It’s like a lady’s perfume.’

  ‘Maybe you can smell yourself,’ Hegarty said. ‘You always did stink like a tart’s boudoir. C’mon. We’ve got the rest of the row to check.’

  A few moments later, the front door banged shut. Quinn closed the hatch. The attic was no longer tall enough for them to stand in, but otherwise nothing had changed. Even the polished floorboards still smelt of cinnamon. The place was warm, clean and cosy. Moonlight spilled through the window at the gable end.

  He caught a glimpse of Hegarty and O’Reilly as they passed along the alley to the house next door. There were muttered voices and another door banged.

  Martha came alongside him. They listened to the footsteps and hushed voices until they were confident that the men had reached the far end of the alley.

  Quinn sat back against a beam. Martha knelt beside him.

  ‘I recognized one of the voices,’ she said, and shivered.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

  Her body shook violently. ‘They’re never gone.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I can always see them in my head. When I woke up in that room, I felt so sick. My head swam. Sarah was whispering in my ear. “Martha, wake up. Wake up. Martha, wake up. Wake up …” The room was spinning. Then I tried to sit up and I saw myself – saw what they’d done – and I heard voices … The fear … it’s like … it eats away your soul.’

  He touched her gently. ‘It’s okay, Martha.’

  ‘No – no, it’s not okay. In the night now I can see them in that doorway, smell the smoke, hear those voices and feel their fingers on me. I … My God, Joe, it makes my stomach churn. I knew what they’d wanted, what they’d take. I knew what would happen, what they wanted to do, what they were going to do …’

  She crumpled into him.

  He wrapped his arms around her.

  Martha cried as if she would never stop. He held her tight and tried to smooth away her sorrow.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘It’s because of who I am.’

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Life is about where you reach for, not where you began.’

  ‘My mother … I used to see her. I used to see her come downstairs with those men and—’

  ‘Stop it, Martha.’

  ‘But it’s like they say, isn’t it? You can take a girl out of the Bowery but—’

  ‘That’s enough. The past is past. It means nothing now. You escaped. You’ve made yourself magnificent – difficult, outspoken, courageous and bold. It’s why I love you, why I always have.’

  His declaration hung in the air.

  They heard the hoot of a distant steamship.

  Martha’s lips touched his cheek.

  She was as still as stone. ‘When we lay on the boards here,’ she breathed, ‘I used to look out of that window and paint pictures of your face in the stars.’

  ‘That’s very poetic.’

  ‘I loved you too, Joe.’

  His heart pounded against his ribs.

  ‘I felt safe here. I wanted to stay here, right here, always.’

  She cupped his face with her long, cool fingers.

  She brushed his forehead with her lips and then, very slowly, very gently, his eyelids and nose. She slipped astride him and kissed him deeply, caressing his neck and throat.

  She eased her dress up her thighs and whispered, ‘Did you dream of me like this, Joe?’

  She loosened his pants, then undid the buttons down the front of her dress and slipped it off. She was almost naked. Her long, graceful body glowed and her breasts were high and proud in the moonlight. She lowered herself upon him with agonizing slowness, her breathing ragged now. ‘Joe,’ she whispered, ‘Joe …’

  When it was over, they lay curled together, listening to the clatter of the rides and looking up at the stars. Her breathing slowed and she relaxed in his arms.

  Voices rose from the street, then fell away. Quinn watched the lights of a ferris wheel. A steamer hooted in the Narrows, drowning the voices of the revellers. He could hear his mother: ‘The Conte di Savoia steams up river, wine from Capri, olive oil from Spain, figs and dates from North Africa …’

  He sought patterns in the shadows, but did not dare move lest the careless brush of an arm let the world back in.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  LATER, QUINN COVERED THEM WITH HIS RAINCOAT AND THEY LAY together, limbs entwined, her warm body pressed to his. He slept fitfully and awoke long before dawn. He sat back against the beam, her head on his lap. He watched the light creep into the corners of the attic. A mouse scampered along the floorboards, looked at him, than scurried back to its hole.

  He listened to the first steamboat dock at the pier. Despite the hour, a Victrola horn spilled ‘When You and I Were Young, Maggie’ along the alleyways below them.

  He noticed her eyes were open. She had been watching him.

  He waited for her to say something, but after a few minutes she sat upright. The raincoat slipped from her body and she pulled on her dress with unselfconscious ease. The ease lovers feel. ‘Joe …’ she began, but stopped and sat down again, cross-legged.

  He could tell she was already retreating: her armour had been restored with the dawn.

  He buttoned his shirt and pants and stood. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘You have to go where?’

  ‘Please stay here.’

  She frowned, her expression suddenly brittle and wary.

  ‘I need to find Dad.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. Please stay. You’re safe here. We’ll come back for you.’

  ‘You’ll never persuade him to leave, Joe.’

  ‘I have to,’ he said simply.

  ‘What about … the others?’ Shame prevented her saying Aidan’s name. Or perhaps he imagined that.

  ‘All of us.’

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘All of us.’

  He waited for her to contradict him, but she swept the palm of her hand to and fro across the floorboards. ‘I’ll only be a few hours. Please stay here.’

  He reached the hatch. ‘Be careful, Joe,’ she said.

  ‘I shouldn’t have let him go.’

  ‘I can’t … I mean …’ She wavered. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

  Quinn held her gaze for a moment, then swung himself down through the hatch to the floor below.

  He avoided the Gardner in case they had a man watching it and searched the alleys further along Surf until he found an automobile he could steal.

  By the time he was on the road, the rain was lashing down with renewed ferocity. He leant closer to the windshield and navigated his way through Brooklyn to Prospect Park.

  West of Sixth, grand mansions gave way to small, down-at-heel brownstones squashed between industrial plants and warehouses. He drew to a halt in a narrow alley that stank of fish and brackish water. Netting spilled from the backs of pick-up trucks and w
as tacked up high to the red-brick walls. He could hear men still dancing to balalaikas in a basement speakeasy three doors away.

  Quinn rapped once on a flimsy wooden door. The rain trickled down his neck. A fisherman shot him a wary glance. ‘Stefan Yanowsky?’ Quinn asked. ‘Is this where the cop lives?’ He waited, but the fisherman did not answer.

  Quinn put his shoulder to the door and climbed the narrow steps to a first-floor apartment with windows high in the roof. The main room boasted a stove, a table and three chairs, and the Dodgers’ four National League pennants tacked to the walls above photographs of Nap Rucker, Babe Herman and Dazzy Vance. Alongside them was a shot of Yan, grinning at the entrance to Ebbets Field with the pennant from 1920 pinned across his chest.

  Quinn moved along the wall. He found another photograph of Yan, this time with two young kids in front of the miniature boathouse on the other side of Prospect Park. They clutched a model yacht, which now stood in the centre of the sideboard.

  There was a key-rack, neatly marked. Three hooks were empty: ‘House’; ‘Buick’; ‘Boathouse’.

  Quinn returned to his automobile and drove through to the south side of Prospect Park. He left the vehicle at the kerbside as the sun broke momentarily through the clouds. Then he ran through strolling families to the boathouse.

  The door was locked and he had to smash a window to get in. From the discarded whisky bottle and rolled-up blankets he knew immediately that this was where they had spent the night. His heart beat faster.

  He stepped back outside, observing the bank of thunderclouds that had regrouped in the east for another assault on the city.

  Back at the automobile, he got in, turned north and kept the pedal down hard, hammering his horn as he careered through the teeming streets. The traffic jammed around City Hall Park and Quinn drummed his fingers in frustration as he watched shadowy figures stream from the subway. Shoeshine boys on the sidewalk yelled themselves hoarse to compete with the screeches of El trains in the rambling shed on the Brooklyn Bridge approach.

  He reached Centre Street and slid into an official bay.

  Lights burnt through the gloom. A newspaper vendor stood beneath his umbrella. ‘Scandal of City Hall “List”’, ran the banner headline on the board beside him. ‘Cops Uncover “Proof” of Corruption at the “Highest Level”’. The byline was Joshua Goldberg’s.