Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4)

by Michael Kerr

  Taking a bus, he had got off in Curtis Bay, walked around until he saw a sign for a room to let on Cherry Street, and on a whim paid for a month. The room was on the second floor of a house that looked ready for demolition. That evening he visited the New Polonia Bar, which looked as old as the Grand Canyon, though it served good beer, and the owner, Alexsy, was easy company as Logan sat on a stool next to the long marble counter and they chewed the fat.

  Alexsy mentioned that his regular barkeep had skipped town with a call girl who needed to be somewhere else. Her pimp didn’t take kindly to any of his girls trying to quit on him. That had led to Logan taking a job; agreeing to tend the bar four evenings a week, which included Saturday and Sunday.

  All had gone well until three dockworkers got drunk and rowdy and started in on a young guy that they accused of giving them hard looks and being disrespectful.

  Logan had come out from behind the counter and asked them to leave. Knew that they wouldn’t, and had subsequently ‒ in self-defense ‒ broken the arm of one, the nose of another, and the jaw of the third. It was the first violence he had been involved in since leaving Arizona. He preferred to steer clear of it, but was not averse to using physical persuasion if it was the only way to resolve a situation that he could not circumvent by word of mouth. No one that he had ever hurt, maimed or killed had, in his estimation, given him anything other than a hard choice. Standing six feet four, being an ex-Marine and ex-cop, and still being fit, strong and extremely capable at fifty years of age, he was not someone to make the mistake of pissing off. Backing down had never been in his repertoire. Adversity of any kind had to be met and overcome; employing whatever methods got the job done.

  “So where will you be heading next?” Alexsy asked. “Down south, like a snowbird following the sun?”

  “No, New York City,” Logan said. “I’ve got the hankering to look up an old friend.”

  “And after that?”

  Logan shrugged. He didn’t usually allow even the near future to clutter his thoughts. Just went with his personal flow, and stepped on or off buses or hitched lifts with less conscious planning than it took to bend down and tie the laces of his Timberland boots. Arnie had been on his mind, though. They had been long-term partners in the New York City Police Department Detective Bureau, and had forged a bond that the passing years and miles apart could not diminish. Give a building or a relationship strong enough foundations and it will stand the test of time.

  Phoning Arnie from Arizona for an address from a reverse call telephone directory had got Logan to thinking that it would be good to go back east and spend a few days with Arnie and his wife, Margie.

  It was midmorning on the Saturday when Alexsy drove him out to just a few hundred feet short of the ramp leading up onto I-95. Logan got out of the old Mercury with nothing but the clothes he stood in and his rucksack. Said goodbye to Alexsy and walked across the sidewalk and on to a gravel-topped lot fronting a diner. By the time he’d finished a cup of coffee he had arranged a lift to Wilmington with a trucker who liked to talk, mainly about hunting and fishing. His name was Chuck, and his rig was a Peterbilt as red as the full beard he sported.

  The nights were getting colder. Logan checked into a seedy motel and asked the owner where he could find a store that sold inexpensive clothing. Was directed to Marshall’s Big & Tall Menswear on 29th Street and bought a heavy fleece jacket, thick pants, some warm shirts, underwear and socks. Changed in a cubicle and left his now redundant garments on the bench, to leave the store with what he wasn’t now wearing rolled up and packed in his rucksack. He traveled light and didn’t get attached to clothing or much of anything else. The choice to keep on the move and not be tied by material binds had been Logan’s idea of what real freedom was, after he had left the NYPD. His present lifestyle had not been thought out in advance; just a reaction to a life of servitude. It was an antithesis to the many years of being a Marine, then a cop.

  It was a little past nine a.m. the next morning when Logan arrived at the Trailways depot on North French Street. He bought a one-way ticket to New York City and sat in the adjacent coffee shop to wait. An hour and three cups of Columbian blend later the bus arrived, and by the time it rolled out he was already asleep in a seat at the rear.

  Arriving at his temporary destination, Logan found an inexpensive hotel on a side street just two blocks from where he had got off the bus. He paid cash for two nights and decided to wait till the next day before phoning The Puzzle Palace, which was a nickname for 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department, located on Park Row in downtown Manhattan near City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge.

  That evening he enjoyed steak and eggs and a couple of beers in a bar and grill a five minute walk away from the hotel. He felt content. Seeing Arnie and Margie again would be good. They were two of only a handful of people on the planet that he genuinely cared for and chose to stay in touch with. Another was Kate Donner in Carson Creek, Colorado. He phoned her now and then, and knew that if he ever went back to the Creek, then he may become too involved with her to leave. Kate was good-looking and quite a few years younger than him: a smart, sexy attorney with a great sense of humor and a caring disposition. They had grown close, and if he had stayed after the trouble there, then his need to be totally independent would have been in serious danger of being compromised. Life was full of hard choices, but he did not let his heart rule his head. Being who he was suited him just fine, with only a few reservations that he could live with. Knowing who he was and being true to his inner self was the only way he could face each day without feeling trapped.

  As he left the grill and made his way back to the hotel, a young guy wearing a navy-colored pea coat and matching watch cap sidled out of an alley and approached him. Logan pegged him as a junkie in need of a fix. He was trembling, his eyes were too wide and fixed, and he was coughing and sniffing. Probably down from a hit of crystal meth, and already needing to get high again and forget what a loser he had become.

  “You gotta cigarette, man?” Lance Roper said to the tall guy that was walking towards him.

  “Don’t use them, son,” Logan said, slowing, and then coming to a standstill as he got to within four feet of the down and out: close enough to see the boils on his emaciated face, and the rotted remains of teeth in what was commonly known as a meth mouth.

  “Thing is, I’m down on my luck,” Lance mumbled. “I got no job, no money, I’m not well, and have nowhere to live. A few dollars would help out.”

  It would have been easy to just walk across the street without saying another word, or to give the kid a few bucks, but Logan rarely opted for easy ways. There was something deep down in his character that compelled him to respond to certain confrontations.

  “You’re what you are and in the shit because you’re a crackhead,” Logan said. “That’s because you have no willpower, son. You don’t have what it takes to get help and try to turn your life around, so get out of my face.”

  “You don’t know fuck all,” Lance said as he put his right hand into the side pocket of his coat.

  Logan allowed himself a small smile. People were so predictable. This loser was in imminent danger of making his miserable existence much worse than it already was. He said, “If you bring anything out of that pocket that I consider to be a weapon, then you need to know that you’ll be spending the foreseeable future in a hospital bed.”

  The Lance of less than two years ago had been basically a mild-mannered and rather timid high-school dropout: a young man who had let the insidious claws of hard drugs transform him into what he had now become. A demon in his mind drove him to feed it, relentlessly urging him to do whatever it took to ease the physical and emotional suffering that only the meth alleviated. The euphoria of a hit always melted away his sense of failure, but the affects were of short-lived duration.

  He ignored the man’s threat, drew the lock knife from his pocket and took another small step closer to Logan.

  “Giv
e me your wallet,” Lance said, waving the short blade of the knife in the air, just two feet from Logan’s face.

  Logan twisted slightly to the right and slowly reached towards the back pocket of his pants, as if to withdraw his wallet, but in reality to transfer his weight to his right foot. His left leg shot up and out with the speed of a cuttlefish’s tentacle, and the edge of his Timberland boot crashed into Lance’s chest, knocking him back off his feet. The back of his head hit the sidewalk, and he was immediately rendered unconscious, finding uncalled-for peace in an unnatural state that totally diminished his craving.

  It had all happened in seconds. Logan did not even check for a pulse, just walked on, back to his hotel. Maybe he was becoming more pitiless than he had ever been before. Life experience tended to shape you; to alter your outlook and perception of everything and everyone else around you. He could recall the first time that he had killed someone in the line of duty. It was an unpleasant incident and had been a heavy burden on his mind, until he did it again and came to terms with the fact that he had done it because it was all part and parcel of what he had joined the military for. He had taken the oath and solemnly sworn that he would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and would bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that he would obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over him, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so help him God.

  Now, as a civilian without the machine of the armed forces or the police department behind him, he still operated as he had always done. Those careers had been the building blocks that had in part made him the man he now was.

  He showered, brushed his teeth, went to bed and slept well, as usual. His conscience was as clear as a Montana sky.

  At seven a.m. Logan was sitting in an old fifties dining car on the Lower East Side. It had burgundy leather benches in the booths and mirrored stainless steel walls.

  Hoagy Marks had left the NYPD after thirty years with a pension as fat as his wife, and opened the diner soon after. He’d named it Hoagy’s Place, and it was popular with the public and cops alike.

  Logan ordered three scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, four bacon strips and two sausage links, plus hash browns and a pot of coffee. The young waitress was dressed in a tunic like the usherettes in cinemas used to wear, back in the day.

  It was Hoagy that set the loaded plate and coffeepot on the table. He had a broad smile on his creased face as he sat down facing Logan.

  “What brings you back to the Big Apple?” Hoagy asked. “I didn’t expect to lay eyes on you again after you put your papers in. Is it because of Arnie?” Hoagy’s smile had vanished, to be replaced with an expression of concern.

  Logan paused with the coffee cup almost to his lips and said, “What do you mean, because of Arnie?”

  “Aw shit, you don’t know. He got shot. Took one in the head. He was―”

  “Is he dead?”

  Hoagy shook his head. “In a coma. They’re not holding out much hope.”

  Logan sipped his coffee. Put the cup down. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “It was called in,” Hoagy said. “He was found at the roadside on the rear seat of his Mustang four days back. The car had been shot up. The wheel rim marks showed that it had been driven off an abandoned pier on the Hudson. A body was found at what they believe to be the crime scene. That’s all I know for sure.”

  For the first time in a very long time, something had happened that put Logan off eating. He didn’t have much else to say to Hoagy. Just got up, nodded his head and left the diner.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The morning after the incident at what was locally known as Dutchman’s Pier, Max Dalton was at a private clinic that was situated on the upper east side of Central Park, only two blocks from the towering building where his boss, Patrick Fallon, lived in a six-bedroom apartment, in what where now commonly called Mansions in the Sky.

  “You’re one lucky son of a bitch, Jack,” Max said as he pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. “You caught three slugs and you’re still breathing. How’re you feeling?”

  “Cut to the chase,” Jack said a little breathlessly. One of the shots had scraped a lung. “You didn’t call in to chitchat or bring me flowers.”

  “No reason not to be civilized. The boss wants details of the fuckup at the pier.”

  “The cop shot Milo. I had him pinned in the car and he tossed his gun out. He climbed out with his hands behind his head. He told me that he had a flash drive that he would hand over to the DA, but he was bluffing. And the bastard had a backup piece in his hand. He got three off before I took him out. I searched him, then the car, but there was nothing.”

  “You didn’t take him out, Jack. He’s alive and in Bellevue, just a stone’s throw from here. The only upside is that he’s in a coma. You should have double-tapped him.”

  “He looked dead to me. I’d just been shot and needed to get the hell away from there before I bled out.”

  “What about the other guy, Benny Cole?”

  “He jumped in the river. I guess he drowned.”

  “You do too much guessing. Maybe he didn’t, and the cop could make it.”

  “Newman hasn’t got enough to cause us any grief.”

  “Maybe, and maybe not. I sent two guys go over to his house. His wife was out. They tore the place apart but found nothing. They took his computer. Maybe what we want is in it.”

  “So why exactly are you here?”

  “I thought that you would’ve got more from Newman. Obviously you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t get chance to.”

  “No sweat. If he didn’t put anything in his computer, then whatever he thought he knew is in his head. And the first chance we get he’s history. Mr. Fallon doesn’t want him to come out of the coma.”

  “So you’re going to have him whacked in Bellevue?”

  “Yeah, and his wife, in case he talked shop with her. And we need to find Benny Cole. He saw what happened.”

  “What about me?” Jack said. “Am I on Mr. Fallon’s shit list?”

  Max smiled. “You’re fine. He was pissed over the way it went down, but he knows that you’re loyal. If he thought otherwise you’d be in the morgue, not a private room with a view and all mod-cons.”

  Logan thought about what to do next. Decided to call and see Margie Newman. Arnie would make it or he wouldn’t, but would be under armed protection at the hospital 24/7. He knew that Margie would be distraught over Arnie. They had always been as close as two peas in a pod. It was more than a marriage; they had been each other’s best friend. Still were, he thought, dismissing the lapse into past tense, as if his ex-partner was already dead and buried.

  It was eleven a.m. when Logan entered the front yard of the house in Tuckahoe, stepped up onto the raised porch and thumbed the doorbell. There was no answer, so he rapped on the wood frame of the door.

  “There’s nobody home,” a familiar voice said from the yard next door. “And you’re a sight for sore eyes, Joe.”

  Logan turned to face the brunette at the other side of a four-foot high wood panel fence that separated the two properties.

  “Hi, Della,” Logan said to the forty-something widow who he knew was a close friend of Margie’s. “What can you tell me?”

  “Come round, I’ll make some fresh coffee,” Della said before going back inside before he could accept or refuse.

  They sat at a table in the large diner kitchen. It was flooded by weak October sunlight, and Logan savored the smell of the coffee and fresh bread that Della had baked that morning.

  “It was, is terrible,” Della said. “Arnie got shot, and a couple hours after Margie had left for the hospital in a police car, some guys broke into the house.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “Not clearly enough to identify. It was dark. I heard noises and thought that Margie had come bac
k, so I phoned, but it just rang. And then I went out in the backyard and could see the odd flash of light from inside. Guessed that it was a burglary in progress so went back in and called the police. From upstairs I saw two figures leave the house and get into a dark SUV in the alley. They’d been gone a few minutes before the police arrived. I called Margie on her cell and told her what was happening, and she came home, packed some things and left.”

  “Where did she go, Della?”

  “She asked me not to tell anyone. I—”

  “I’m not anyone. You know who I am. I was Arnie’s partner for years, and Margie is probably in danger, and knows it. If whoever had Arnie shot finds out where she is, he’ll ask questions that I doubt she could answer. And even if she could, she would be murdered.”

  “How do you know that?” Della said, getting up and going over to a counter and fumbling a cigarette out of a pack, to light it but stay where she was, just waiting for Logan to answer her.

  He took another sip of the coffee. “My take on it is that Arnie was lured out to the pier to meet whoever shot him. He knows something, and must have something that someone wants. The B and E ‒ breaking and entering ‒ was to find whatever he has, which is probably incriminating evidence.”

  Della knew that Logan had been close to the couple. She trusted him, but had a niggling doubt. It seemed a big coincidence that he had turned up on the doorstep now after being in the wind for so long. “I’m not sure what to do,” she said after stubbing the cigarette end out in a ceramic ashtray purloined five years ago from a Marriott hotel in Orlando.

  “I’ll pour more coffee,” Logan said. “You phone Margie and let me speak to her, and we’ll take it from there. Okay?”

  Della nodded, phoned Margie and told her that Joe was with her. Asked for an update on Arnie, but there was no change in his condition.

  “Hi, Logan,” Margie said when Della handed him the phone. “What brings you back to the city?”