by Jackson, Gil
He turned to Charlie. ‘For my life, that looks like it could be her, agreed?’
‘If it isn’t, whoever she is she ain’t safe among that company, let’s do some shillelaghing or schemozzling if you would prefer.’
Taking stairs two at a time; pulling guns from shoulder holsters, Frank leading the way, he shouldered the door into the auditorium. It stayed closed. Charlie shouted to him to stand aside. Having the bigger frame of the two of them the Irishman launched himself sideways at the door, which would have given way with half the force. While Charlie was trying to regain his balance Frank went through.
The three circus entertainers turned round at this sudden intrusion and panicked in three different directions at once, but Frank had them covered and fired a warning shot into the air, then a second and wished he could have put a bullet into all of them. Charlie trying to overcome forward momentum and gravity kept the circus entertainers temporarily confused as to where he would finish up among them — but not for long — he lost the battle with both forces and crashed into their legs sending them into disarray like nine-pins that upset Frank’s arrangements.
The woman escort tried to make good some kind of escape, took the opportunity in the mêlée by dragging her charge back through one of the open mirrors that doubled as a door and was gone.
Frank fired again into the ceiling and shouted for order. ‘GET YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS AND STAND STILL, YOU’RE ALL UNDER ARREST!’ They stood there, arms in the air. Frank couldn’t help noticing that the bloodhound was shaking like a leaf. With his gun levelled at them he turned his attention to Giuseppi and shouted. ‘HOW DO I GET BEYOND THAT MIRROR?’
‘Find out for yourself, Jew!’
Charlie only now recovering some balance and feeling a little silly at his display of entranced tactics, picked up one of the chairs, held it above his head and launched it through the air and into the glass door that was the object of Frank’s question. The door came down like a waterfall of exploding glass with the three circus entertainers momentarily dropping their hands to protect themselves and Frank covering his eyes wondering what Charlie thought he was doing.
Again the three entertainers tried to make a break for it and again Frank held them with another round of fire into the ceiling. Charlie leapt onto the stage with the intention of going through the remains of the mirror door but before he could there was another crash of glass from one of the other mirrors and this time it was his turn to turn away from the cascade of mirror shards. Turning to look, he saw the woman that had earlier gone through the revolving mirror coming back. Her head contorted; her body twisted from a vicious punch that had been impacted to her face from Fariq Mihalyvich. The woman did a neat backward roll in front of the audience. The diversion gave Giuseppi the chance to bring his fist down onto Frank’s gun, knocking it to the floor. Frank tried to retrieve it and received a vicious kick to the side of his head for his trouble.
Frank had never been kicked in the head before — it was not something that he would have expected. He only knew that it hurt like hell; hitting the floor between two rows of seats. He also knew that you couldn’t get up easily from it. Giuseppi stepped over the body of the woman pulled a gun, and let go three rounds into Fariq. The first of them hit him in the shoulder and spun him round so quickly that the second and third went right past him.
Charlie threw a punch at him but Giuseppi was too quick and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him clear of the ground and throwing him across the auditorium landing him into a row of seats back first. Frank managed to get to his feet watched in amazement at this display of strength against his bulky Irish partner who was laid out roughly like a rag doll across the furniture, his neck hideously hanging onto a head that was clearly not meant to be in the position that it was could only mean one thing to him.
Marco Giuseppi. His face appearing centred on a large head looked blue; his eyes - fiery yellow slitted like an animals? His upper torso also appeared larger than it had been with shoulders that were rounded, hunched, supported on legs that were squatted. The whole picture was more of a hoofed creature than a man.
The bloodhound and the clown seeing the same scene cared little for anything else but escape and ran for the same door that Frank and Charlie had come in by. Frank made a tentative effort at stopping one of them and held him by the ankle. The man crashed to the floor, pulled his mask off and spoke to him. ‘Let me be, I’ll speak to you later.’ Frank wasn’t going to have any of that shit but the kick to the head earlier made it impossible for him to hold the man and he was up and gone along with the bloodhound and the goat.
Frank got to his feet and was no longer inclined to go down without a fight against Giuseppi though the odds were stacked against him, he saw that he had now turned his attention toward Fariq who was equally unimpressed, tried to get up with his wounded shoulder, couldn’t, but managed to plunge a hunting knife into Giuseppi’s leg. Giuseppi struck him a blow across the back of his neck dislodging the brain stem from his vertebrae. Fariq didn’t try to get up again. Standing over him, he faced his daughter. The two of them were locked in mutual harmony.
Frank made a last ditch stand to intervene ran to her aid. ‘LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU FILTHY FUCKING BASTARD!’
All sense of the futility of what was before him and his actions after what he had seen Giuseppi capable of, first to his partner, Fariq and the girl. This poor creature and all those that had gone before her at the hands of this thing and his filthy trade were all that he cared about. God only knew what pit this man had sprung from. ‘LEAVE HER I SAID, LEAVE HER ALONE!’ and with one last effort of will leapt onto his back.
The man was immensely strong and seconds later he had thrown him off and he was alongside Charlie only unlike Charlie he was right way up and conscious, before him Charlie’s gun. Grasping it he turned it on Giuseppi and fired two shots. The first of the bullets went into his neck; the second his head. But there was no damage and he sensed the game was up. Whatever Giuseppi had become — was, perhaps always had been — he was powerless and could only wait for him to finish him off.
He looked back at the stage, Fariq’s daughter was still alive, thank God, hope she had enough of her own will to escape this place. Her father, lying on the ground before her: the last of her family. And this monster, he watched him put his hands round her throat. His filthy hands invading her young flesh inspired him to make one more last move to save her when came an ear-splitting crack of thunder accompanied by a flash of lightning. The whole house shook from the ferocity that made Frank bring his arms up to protect himself from what he thought was a certain collapse of a derelict building around his ears. And in this position came two more thunder cracks and to his continued amazement brought down neither ceiling or blew out any doors as he would have expected. But it was not from outside, it was from within. He opened his eyes, and although the thunder had receded the lightning was still shining; like a constant burning of flash powder.
He tried to make out what was going on through the glare but it made his eyes burn. Straining against it he thought he saw the girl walking through the hands that a second before was round her throat. In fact they were still in position as if she still had her neck inside them. There was also someone else with them, another person centre that had not been there before. It appeared to be coming and going white and black at the same time. He could not be sure that it had a face although he was sure there was something. It didn’t seem to be able to be describable. He considered he was experiencing some hallucinatory shock. But shock was not the right word for the emotion that he was feeling but one of calm that he could not remember that he had ever felt before in his life. Perhaps he was dead along with Charlie. There was Giuseppi looking at his hands. Flames were coming from them: that couldn’t be right. The fire from his hands was tracking back to something or someone, yes there was, he could see long hair from a woman’s face, the girl! She had become a woman. Streaming from her head as if it was being blown by the wind.
And standing there taking the flames into her. They were being turned back towards Giuseppi. Then came a small bang that sent him rolling backwards and crashing into a wall. He got up and sent some more flames back. This time she took the full force of them and was sent careering into the mirrors. A battle was taking place and was convinced that he must be dead for these were events that were not visited. She lay there immobilised, before disappearing. He must have won. Then the black and white thing came back he could see it more clearly than before, half a man — in stature — but the height was in the air. A loud clicking sound accompanied its progress. It came across the auditorium fast lifting the woman from behind through the mirrors breaking nothing, was gone. There was an interval before it came again from right to left with it the loud clicking like a curtain being pulled open across the stage in a theatre. Then it was all over, as quickly as it had begun. There was no Giuseppi, no girl, no nothing. Leaving a vision in his brain of a woman, no longer destined for a mortal role in this world. He had thoughts that she was above that and her kind had been here before but they were erased from his memory as quickly as they came. Frank knew what everything was without being able to put words to it or explain it. For she ... was one of His. An Angel? And Detective Lieutenant Frank Weinberg of the 7th Precinct, Lower East Side police department collapsed. He was drifting off into white oblivion when someone tried to call him back. He didn’t want to leave but followed the voice regardless, opening his eyes he looked into the face. A curious expression came upon him, for he recognised the man, but could put neither name nor relationship to him. A man like himself, like the ghost of an ancestor, or not ... as if he was a ... descendant?
* * *
‘Frank. Frank ... can you hear me, Frank?’
Charlie was whispering. The thought of shouting at someone that was dead seemed irreverent, even though he was trying to raise him back to life.
He decided that as he was dead a change of tone would be of no great disadvantage after all. ‘FRANK!’ he screamed and began shaking him, ‘FRANK! IT’S ALL OVER!’
Frank stirred, opened his eyes and said, ‘Father’? Then an Irishman shouting at him. ‘Charlie! You’re alive?’
‘Never moind aboot moi state of health, what’d you think you’re playing at frightening me like that and calling me father?’ Charlie had a habit of disappearing into the vernacular when annoyance gave way to relief.
He got himself up with Charlie’s help and remembered Charlie’s broken neck. ‘What about you, Charlie, you ok?’
‘Sure I am why shouldn’t oi be?’
It doesn’t matter.’ He looked at the devastation around him.
‘What’d you talking aboot? What’s gone on, Frank? Where’s the girl? Marco? Those three idiots?’
Frank didn’t answer. He couldn’t remember, not all of it anyway. The last thing he remembered was the girl being attacked by Giuseppi. Something had gone on, but what he was going to put in his report was not going to be complete. He picked his way through bits of broken glass, plaster, looking for something, he didn’t know what: that would put any kind of flesh to bones. An illusion? Not quite, he knew a broken neck when he saw one. All that was left was the girl’s minder laid out on the floor where Fariq had hit her. The lead of cord still attached to her wrist; the loop at the other end that had been round the girl’s wrist was round her neck and had stilled the life from her. In the woman’s inguinal region and standing out like an icicle, a shard of glass: had left the woman bleeding to death lying in a pool of four pints of her own blood; leaving both good and evil soaked in it.
Unseen by the either of them, the bloodhound removed his mask, looked on with a quiet satisfaction, and followed the other two men. They drove off together leaving one of the cars.
PART ONE
CHAPTER 5 - 1920
I
Police Commissioner Harry Rivers had mixed feelings for the man sitting opposite. That he would cause him problems: there was little doubt. For the moment though, he would be stuck with him. The report Weinberg had submitted to the Bureau of Investigation spoke of the abduction and murder of Fariq Mihalyvich’s daughter, the abuse and murder of his wife; pointed to Marco Giuseppi. But there was no real evidence to convict Giuseppi if anyone did know of his whereabouts - and what was most important nothing to tie in either himself or Governor Brent in any complicity with the man. As for previous cases, he was sure that he could convince the most persistent of inquisitor’s that came looking that it was all fanciful thinking on Dore’s part – most of the files were missing - those remaining: untouched - five thousand immigrants descending on Ellis Island every year wouldn’t warrant a second glance. Bureau of Investigation were nothing more than career conscious high ranking cops getting above their station; poking their noses in trying to make names for themselves; there would be little meat in this inquiry to give themselves something to get anything like their teeth into especially with a couple of local policemen that were incapable of obeying orders and taking their law into their hands.
He had mentioned the Bureau visit to Brent, expressing his concerns over any collusion that they had had in the past coming to light and hoped that he could be relied upon to support him.
‘If I can’t back up my Police Commissioner,’ he had said, ‘it would be a pretty poor deal; they’ve nothing on us apart from me having known Giuseppi; what politician hasn’t been involved with the underworld at some time or other there’s usually nothing sinister in that. I’m not without, shall we say a little influence where the Bureau’s concerned.’
He had felt happy with that as an answer from Brent.
There was the matter of Weinberg asking him to release Tony Di Sotto after those appalling injuries he had suffered at the hands of person or persons unknown – nice touch him agreeing to that one; will make him look as if he’s not against Weinberg as his commanding officer in principal. He had agreed that as Tony Di Sotto had repented his involvement with Giuseppi coupled with him going back to Sicily he had seen nothing wrong with agreeing with Weinberg that he was not afterall the murderer of Oonna Mihalyvich and her daughter (name not known), and that it was probably the man known as Sledge Driver: his own mysterious death being put down to an Act of God! Two years off retirement; an end to all this with a formal investigation by a bunch of amateurs would keep Brent away from him long enough not to start any other games. He’d made his money and expressed those views to Brent and with Giuseppi gone Brent had agreed with him that he had earned his stripes.
For the moment at least his job was to clear the air with Weinberg, see that they understood each other, remind him that he might be in line to be the next Police Commissioner; relax with a fresh start; put their pasts behind them – maybe join them on some of their jobs; become part of the legend they had become as no-nonsense crime-busters that he and Charlie O’Hare had among the run-of-the mill criminal fraternity on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Precinct 7th.
II
Lieutenant Weinberg had never hit it off with Police Commissioner Harry Rivers. He was a cop on the take who had, at times made their job impossible; he hadn’t minced his words when it came to saying so. It had been a constant source of frustration to both him and Charlie O’Hare to have it thrown in their faces whenever an arrest was made that Rivers would see them alright. Those that were on his pay roll were not above admitting to what they had done challenging them to do something. He smiled to himself at the thought of him and Charlie O’Hare taking it in turns to give one or the other of them a “fooking good shilleaghlying”, as Sergeant O’Hare so delicately liked to put it, adding that at least those that were paying him off wore the sign of the “must have fallen down the stairs your honour” dodgy black eye badge – earned while the other had his back turned. Word soon got out: Harry Rivers might be on the take but sure as hell Weinberg and O’Hare were not and what’s more, were not of a mind to having the piss taken out of them for it.
Not that Harry was on the take with everyone - he wasn
’t, he was selective. Mainly with the one man that made him want to puke; and the man – if they ever find him - that if ever there was one should be taken out and hanged. Murder was one thing: abuse, torture, and the slaying of innocents, if he wasn’t personally responsible, and immigrants as some people had suggested were not worth bothering with, was another - at least as far as he was concerned. He had no hard evidence but if it was the last thing he ever did he would get it, charge him with it and Police Commissioner Harry Rivers with the conspiracy to ignoring it.
He hadn’t worked out what had happened the night he and Charlie had broken into Giuseppi’s house to bring the girl out. The explosion, the strange figure, and the bright light was not something he could mention. It was all so much confusion: there had been others present. Fortunately and unfortunately Charlie had been out of it and was not in a position to question him. Although he had been convinced, at that time, that Charlie’s head — the way it was hanging after he had been thrown by Giuseppi — that his neck had been broken, he couldn’t explain that. Obviously the man that had killed Sledge Driver had the same strength and was one and the same.
Like a persistent nightmare he had kept coming back to their bust: a rainless storm, a figure in black, and the forks of blue flames. Had he dreamt it? Could he, a rational thinking cop believe the incontrovertible evidence in front of his own eyes? And himself? Irish cop, hard drinking, hard fighting; recovering from a snapped third vertebrae. Hadn’t batted an eyelid when he had come round. The reports they had submitted had been his, word for word. But not that. The report that he’d put forward was what had happened, to a point, what else could he have done, their reputations would have gone right out the window along with their careers and pensions.
