by Клео Коул
“Hello, Michael.”
Thirty-One
“I hadn’t pegged you for a smoker.”
“I’m not. I was just leaving.” I rose from the chair.
“Don’t go. I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
“Why not? Is my cousin around? I didn’t see him.”
“He had to work.”
“When doesn’t he?”
“Like I said, I should go — ”
Michael folded his arms, leaned against the doorframe, effectively blocking my exit.
The closer I stepped toward the man, the more he came out of shadow. His pasty complexion appeared to have more color now, flushed from drink or that little drama queen act with Josie or both.
“That was quite a scene in there,” I said.
Michael shrugged. “Josie can’t take no for answer. She never could.”
“You have zero interest in her, I take it?”
“Let’s just say the woman’s well-cushioned life hasn’t brought out the best in her character.”
“I see. Well, I should go back inside...” I tried to step around him.
“I saw you at Bigsie’s funeral,” he said. “It was nice, you comin’. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to say hello to you at the church.”
“You were comforting the man’s family. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry for you loss...”
He gestured to the empty bench. “Won’t you sit down with me? Just for a minute?”
I glanced over his shoulder into the crowded pub. “Val’s coming back.”
I folded my arms. “What’s the matter, dove?” His crow’s feet crinkled. “You think I’d stoop to ravishin’ you in a bar’s back alley?”
“When anything involves you, Michael, I don’t know what to think.”
“You can trust me.” He crossed his heart with two fingers — the good Boy Scout. “Promise.”
“I don’t know. Seems to me your promises leave something to be desired.”
“Maybe they do. But I need to talk to you about something important... About the way Bigs died.”
Okay, that I didn’t expect. “What can you tell me?”
He leaned down, his breath heavy with the smell of alcohol. “He was murdered.”
“That’s what James said.”
Michael straightened. “James shouldn’t have shot off his mouth.”
“Please,” I whispered, “talk to me. Who’s responsible?”
“It’s complicated...”
Somewhere over our heads, an unsettling thunder began. The Number 7 line was just a block away from where we stood. In midtown Manhattan the tracks were buried deep underground, but here in Queens, the subway train was elevated, periodically roaring over neighborhood streets, making quiet talk impossible. (Then again, in my experience, whenever any previously buried thing was brought out into the open, polite talk became impossible.)
The captain untangled his arms as he moved around me. With unsteady steps, he went to the bench, sunk heavily down. When the deafening noise finally died out, he spoke again.
“I got the evidence today, put it in a package addressed to you.”
“Me?” I sat down next to him on the bench.
“I would have sent the thing to Mike, but one look at the return address and he’d surely toss it in the bin. I want you to give the package to my cousin, explain why it’s important. You’ll know once you look it over. Mike will listen to you. And after you’re done convincin’ him, you two call me and we can get this whole thing handled right.”
“You want Mike’s help?”
“Mikey and I have had our differences. But I know he’s a good cop. To a fault maybe, but he’s still my blood — and he’s the only government official in this town I trust.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never let the fire get behind you, darlin’, that’s what it means.”
“English?”
“I can’t give the evidence to any of the brass above me. Someone may have been paid off. There’s no way I can know...”
“What’s in the package? Can’t you tell me?”
“Not here. Not now.” He glanced at the doorway again. Shadows moved past, but none materialized. “I shouldn’t even be talkin’ to you. But I noticed you came here alone tonight. And you were lookin’ my way an awful lot this evening... and I thought maybe...”
His eyes held mine. As I waited for him to complete his sentence, an icy breeze touched my hair. I tried not to shiver. “Well?”
“I thought maybe you were havin’ second thoughts about my offer.”
“You mean Atlantic City?”
“I mean me, Clare. You and me.”
Oh brother. “There is no you and me. Is there even a package? Or are you playing me again?”
“What I told you in my office, Clare, that was true. I’ve never met a woman quite like you.”
“Stop it. You’re still trying to get back at Mike.”
“Not this time.”
“Listen to me: I’ve got your number. Mike told me the truth about what happened with your little brother, Kevin. The whole truth. You left out enough of the story to make Mike look like a cold-hearted monster. You told me that story to make me doubt him.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Yes! I know you’ve been through terrible things in your life, Michael, terrible things... and I’m sorry for that. But it doesn’t excuse your treatment of your cousin.”
“My little brother would have been my brother in the FDNY if it wasn’t for my cousin — ”
“Mike had nothing to do with what happened to Kevin! Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“Your little brother self-destructed right before he was supposed to enter the fire academy because he was afraid.”
“Afraid? Of who?”
“Of you, Michael. I’m a mother! I know!”
He just gawked at me, looking confused.
I sighed. To me it was clear as sunlit glass. Kevin and Lucia had been on the very same unhappy ride, driven by father figures who wanted them to be something they just didn’t want to be.
“Kevin didn’t want to join the FDNY, but he didn’t want to risk your disappointment. He was terrified you’d turn your back on him. So he screwed up royally by driving drunk. He blamed the police, Mike, anyone but himself — and you bought right into it.”
“If my little brother had come to me, told me how he felt, I would have understood. I’d never turn my back on my own flesh and blood.”
“You turned on your own cousin, didn’t you? You’ve been treating Mike like the enemy, but he isn’t. All you did for all these years was twist the real story until it fit into a bogus ‘truth’ you could live with.”
Michael blinked. He suddenly looked less sure of himself. I could only hope it was because a thin wedge of insight was finally penetrating his thick cranium.
“Come on. Don’t you think it’s time that you two buried the hatchet?”
“Aw, darlin’...” He exhaled hard, rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s too much bad blood between us. Years of it. Too much we did to each other. I’d like to be on level ground with my cousin again... I would. But Mike won’t want to bury the hatchet with me — not unless it’s in my skull.”
“How can you say that?”
“You don’t know everything.” He parted his lips, pointed. “You see this gold tooth? That was Mike’s right hook...”
“What don’t I know? Tell me.”
“No...” He held my eyes. “You tell me. Tell me why you’re still sitting here now, talking to me... You must feel what’s between us, Clare, because I can feel it...”
I began to answer, but somewhere above, the Number 7 train was approaching again, the insistent machinery growing louder, drowning out my words.
Michael leaned closer, his breath so saturated with whiskey I could almost feel the burn of the shot. Bef
ore I knew what was happening, the man’s iron band of an arm was behind my back, crushing me close.
“Michael, no!”
He was half drunk and fumbling, more sad than dangerous. The rough brush of his handlebar mustache moved over my mouth first then down my cheek. I felt his lips at my jaw line, my neck, a hand groping my breast. I squirmed and struggled.
“Stop it right now! Stop!”
The captain froze, finally hearing me above the subway’s deafening thunder. His lips moved off of my neck, his hand was no longer groping. He lifted his head and was just beginning to release me when —
“You son of a bitch!”
It was Mike — my Mike — standing at the pub’s back door. He’d come to Saints and Sinners after all, his shout of outrage half swallowed by the unrelenting movement of the elevated subway. Before I could say a word, he launched, hauling back and punching his cousin in the side of the head.
“Mike, don’t!”
The fire captain reeled, and Mike punched him again, this time in the gut. The captain’s arms remained at his sides. He took the blows, like he knew he had it coming. Michael wasn’t even trying to defend himself!
“Stop!” I shouted. “Your cousin’s drunk! He didn’t mean it!”
Another punch to the face.
“You’ll kill him! Stop!”
But Mike just kept pummeling his cousin.
I ran to the pub’s doorway. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!”
A mob of firefighters rushed out and pulled the cousins apart. A few swings landed on Mike for payback.
“Leave him be,” Michael shouted, wiping blood from his nose.
The men complied.
Mike stood there, scowling with fury. The mechanized storm had finally subsided, and the night went deadly quiet as his gaze found mine. We locked eyes — a split second in hell.
“This isn’t what it looks like.” My voice was raspy and far too weak. “You have to let me explain...”
Mike exhaled, glanced at the defensive line of firefighters, most of them his cousin’s men. It was the last place he’d want to hear an explanation, and I couldn’t blame him. Without a word, he turned and strode down the alley, toward the street.
“Don’t leave, Mike. Come back!”
I moved to run after him, but someone caught my arm, held it firm. I turned. It was Val.
“Let him go, Clare. Let him cool off...”
I wheeled again, back toward Mike, but he was gone, swallowed up by the city’s darkness.
Thirty-Two
“Ever heard of a fire triangle, Clare?”
“Fire triangle?” I said, turning up the car’s heater — to little effect.
Val waved her lit cigarette in the air. She’d opened her window to keep the interior from filling up, but the night had gotten colder and my clunker hadn’t gotten any newer.
“Fire needs three elements to exist: fuel for it to consume; oxygen for it to breath; and heat to ignite the other two in a chain reaction — ”
“Oh, right, I do know this,” I said, recalling Captain Michael’s little lecture the night Caffè Lucia went up.
“Well, you, my friend are in a fire triangle.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fuel and oxygen in a room together don’t do squat. But introduce heat and... whammo.”
“I am not heat. And that wasn’t supposed to happen back there. Michael and I were just talking.”
Val took a drag. “Timing’s like that. You can’t always control it. Just like fire... or men.”
Tell me about it. I’d already tried reaching Mike by cell phone — ten tries in a row. I’d gotten voice mail every time (and I’d left multiple messages). He hadn’t bothered to return even one, and my sympathy for the man was slowly turning to impatience. In another hour, it would be full-fledged anger.
“I could understand Mike being upset,” I told Val, “but he should have trusted me better than that. He should have waited for an explanation instead of charging in and busting up his cousin!” I struck the steering wheel. “At least Michael didn’t fight back. I have to give the man credit for that...”
After that one-way boxing match, the captain’s men had helped him back inside the pub, where they began to clean him up. That’s when Val hustled me outside, saying it was better if I got clear of the place. I didn’t argue, and I knew Val’s husband would be in much better shape than Michael to discuss Bigsby Brewer’s death.
Now I was driving east on Roosevelt, toward the nearby neighborhood of Jackson Heights where Val shared a home with James.
The trip from Saints and Sinners wasn’t long, only a few miles. When we turned onto Val’s street, she pointed out her address, a redbrick row house three stories high. At the first open spot along the curb, I swerved and parked.
“You have the whole house?” I asked, impressed with the size.
“Just the first two floors,” she said. “It’s a rental, but we’ve got a lot of square footage for the money, which is good because I’m probably about four weeks away from losing my job.”
“You are?”
“We have a separate garage in back, too. Come on...”
As I locked up the car, Val went to the front door. There was still half a cigarette left, but she snuffed it out in the base of a dying potted plant.
“James!” Val called as she strode across the tiled foyer and into the carpeted living room. The lights were blazing all over the house and somewhere a radio was barking the play-by-play of a basketball game.
“James!”
No answer.
“Sit down, Clare, relax. He’s probably in the upstairs bathroom. The one down here isn’t working.”
As Val climbed the stairs, I considered sitting down, then reconsidered. I really needed a caffeine hit now, and if I knew James, he had a decent supply of Arabica beans in his cupboards.
The Noonan kitchen was neat and well appointed. No surprise, considering the way James had manned his firehouse post. Every pot and pan hung efficiently on its pegboard hook. A sparkling clean coffeemaker stood at attention on the counter, its companion grinder on duty beside it. Flour and sugar canisters were lined up by descending height and a four-foot tall wine rack stood in the corner, fully stocked — again, not a surprise given James’s preferences.
I half smiled when my eye caught the bright orange of a shopping bag on the floor near the trash can. Yet another fan of UFC Korean Fried Chicken. Val, no doubt...
I was about to check the cupboards for whole bean Arabica when I noticed something on the kitchen table (other than the lazy Susan of condiments): a single bottle of beer. A pilsner glass sat next to it. The glass was nearly full, nearly because there was no head, the frothy white bubbles had died long ago.
But James doesn’t like beer...
I glanced up and noticed something curious beyond the back door window. A soft yellow light was glowing between the cracks in a small wooden shed — the garage Val mentioned. The structure was separated from the main house by a narrow concrete drive.
I moved to the kitchen’s back door and turned the handle. It was unlocked. I exited the house, feeling the chill of the night once more.
As I crossed the narrow drive, I became aware of a low rumbling. But this wasn’t the Number 7 train. This was the sound of an idling car engine. With every step closer to the shed, the rumbling grew louder. But why would someone want to run a car motor inside a garage?
Oh my God!
I lunged the last few feet to the door, tore it open, and gagged on the toxic white fog. A man’s body was slumped over the steering wheel.
I stumbled back outside, choking and coughing. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, I charged back in, yanked open the car door, and used every molecule of strength to drag the big, inert body out to the cold concrete.
My heart was pumping, my adrenaline racing. Gasping violently, I turned over the unconscious man, desperate to help.
It was James Noonan, and there was no helping him. He
was already dead.
Thirty-Three
Metal clinked against the windshield. I started at the sound. Disoriented, I licked my lips, tasted salt, and realized I’d cried myself to sleep. Then I remembered the reason and my eyes welled up all over again.
My ex-husband rapped the rain-flecked window a second time. To spur me to action, he pointed to the stainless steel thermos in his hand.
Coffee. Oh, thank goodness...
I sat up and popped the door lock. Matt climbed into the front passenger seat. His half-porcupine head looked like the before-and-after picture of a men’s hair gel commercial; his eyes were bloodshot; and twin emotions warred on his face, an epic struggle between concern and annoyance.
Without a word he unscrewed the thermos lid and poured. I grabbed the metal cup, bolted it, held it out for more, and gulped a second. Now I knew how Val felt, taking those first drags on the smokers’ patio.
“Okay, Clare,” Matt said, “I’m here. What the hell is going on? You were crying so hard I couldn’t understand half of what you were blubbering over the phone.”
I spilled the whole awful story: the drunken pass by Mike’s cousin, the unholy timing of Mike’s seeing it, the ugly bar fight, then my going home with Valerie and discovering her husband’s asphyxiated body in their small garage.
My hero firefighter was dead. As I described the baby pink color of James’s corpse, I broke down again. Matt handed me a handkerchief then put his arm around me. When I finished getting his leather jacket good and wet, I began telling him what happened after the police arrived.
“An army of them tramped all through the Noonans’ home,” I said. “Detectives interviewed Val and me in separate rooms, and I told them that I believed James was murdered.”
“Murdered? Why?”
“That’s what the detectives wanted to know.”
“And?”
“James was killed because of what he knew about Bigsby Brewer’s death. I’m sure of it.”
“What did he know?”
“James wouldn’t tell me. That’s why I went to see him. He was supposed to be at the pub, but he never showed. So I asked Val to help me try to coax the truth out of him... and I know there’s a truth. Michael Quinn even confirmed it.”
