Cruel Mercy

by David Mark

  McAvoy is about to reply when he sees her blow him a kiss, then she cuts the connection. He sits and stares at the blank screen, suddenly full of his own reflection. His phone and laptop light up simultaneously as the e-mails start pinging through. He pulls out his phone, wondering if he should send Roisin another trio of kisses. He sees that among the e-mails from Trish, he has a text from Alto. It contains an address, and four words: I need your help.

  McAvoy looks at his watch. It’s a little after eleven. He has spent the day retracing Brishen’s footsteps and growing steadily more frustrated. A couple of hours back, he gave in to his growling stomach and ordered a large pizza in a sports bar off Times Square. The dish that arrived was the size of his patio furniture at home but he still managed a brownie and Oreo milkshake and straw fries. So far, he fancies, polishing off the meal has been his biggest achievement to date.

  He drains his drink, waves at the bar staff, and heads out into the cold and the dark of Queen Street. He has a cab inside two minutes, and texts Alto to tell him he will be there soon. Eyes on his phone, he does not see the Lexus that pulls away from the curb and begins to tail him—two men in the front and a girl with purple hair in the rear.

  She no longer looks so much like a student. There is a gun in her left hand, and a picture of Aector McAvoy in her right. Her eyes are focused on the rear of the cab.

  She, in turn, does not see the short, bald man in the nondescript Honda as he pulls out of a parking spot and begins to follow both vehicles.

  She will not see him until the bullets start to fly.

  ELEVEN

  Alto knows he should not have had the extra drink last night. He has spent these past months on the strictest of regimens, but in the easy company of the Scottish detective, he allowed himself the extra measure. That drink led to another on his way back to Pitt Street. By three a.m. he was in the all-night liquor store and by breakfast time he had drunk three-quarters of a bottle of Wild Turkey. He slept it off on a cot bed in one of the empty rooms on the top floor of the station. He woke with a headache so powerful it seemed to spill out of his skull and leave agony in the air. He dry-heaved his way through an energy shake and a fruit salad, popping ibuprofen as if he were eating peanuts. By midafternoon, his headache had subsided sufficiently for him to start considering a beer. He started on a Heineken just before his evening meal of leftover Chinese food and as he sits in his car in the parking lot at the rear of Norfolk Street, his belches taste of bourbon and Szechuan sauce. He is barely recognizable as the elegant, well-presented man who greeted McAvoy just last evening. His amber-tinted glasses are perched on his head and the front of his checked shirt is open almost to his navel. The T-shirt beneath is dirty with spilled food and drops of whiskey. There is mud on the knees of his dark jeans and the knuckles of two fingers on his right hand are swollen. When the drink eases off, he knows he faces a lot of pain.

  On the passenger seat, Alto’s cell phone lights up. His first thought is that it’s his ex-wife. He left her enough messages last night. They started with apology and progressed to maudlin expressions of self-loathing to angry, bitter stabs of recrimination. He doubts she will reply, or even if he still has the correct number for her. He only told her how much he hated himself because it would have been too pitiful to leave such a diatribe on his own voicemail service. He knows last night’s drinking was an act of self-abuse. He can already feel the tentacles of depression start to drag him down. He wants to lose himself in food and alcohol, cigarettes and women. He knows, too, that he will not stop feeling this way until the man who haunts his thoughts is behind bars or in the ground.

  “Alto,” he says, answering the call without looking at the name or number on the screen.

  “This is Aector McAvoy,” comes the voice. “You texted me. I wrote you back to say I’m on my way but I didn’t hear from you. Is everything okay? How can I help?”

  Alto holds the phone away from his ear. The big man’s accent is a pleasing sound, lyrical and poetic. He remembers sending the message, typing it out with one quivering thumb while swigging from the neck of the bottle of Wild Turkey. He thinks he may have fallen asleep since then. He checks the display and sees how many calls and texts he has missed. It’s coming up on midnight. He’s been here for more than two hours. The last thing he remembers is making a decision that he knows he will feel guilty about for a very long time. He needs to use the Scotsman. Needs to play the poor sap like a fiddle.

  “Hello? Detective Alto?” comes the voice.

  Alto coughs, wincing at the foul taste in his throat. He shakes his face. Rubs his hands through his hair and finds his glasses, which he pulls on. The daylong headache is still pulsing at his temples. His stomach feels acidic and he has an overwhelming desire to start growling in a low, whimpering expression of displeasure.

  “Sergeant,” he says, looking at the bottle on the seat and hating himself. “I’m sorry it took so long to get back in touch. How are you finding New York?”

  “Fine, fine,” says McAvoy, and Alto can tell from the whistling through the phone that the big man is outside. “I came to the address you gave me. What’s the situation? We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Alto coughs again and his mouth fills with bile. He half chokes on it before opening the car door and spitting onto the hard snow of the parking lot. He tries to get ahold of himself. Memories are coming back to him. He was following Murray Ellison again. He watched the slimy prick move from one bar to the next, surrounded by cronies dressed in the same uniform of blue suit, expensive shirt, silk tie, and cashmere coat. In each bar, Alto drank. What started as surveillance became something more. With each drink, the hatred he felt for Ellison became more potent. By the time Ellison made it to the Toytown speakeasy, he was with just two of his associates and had drunk nothing stronger than sparkling water. Alto, on the other hand, was drunk almost insensible. When he tried to follow Ellison into the club, bouncers blocked his path. He told them he was a cop trying to save a life and they laughed at him. He swung a punch and took one for his troubles. Somebody stepped on his hand. He dragged himself back to his car. Found his phone and tried to concentrate on what the hell he was here for and who he could ask for help. Everybody from the Seventh would do time for Alto but he could not in good conscience ask anybody close to him to risk their career.

  The image of the big Scotsman filled his head.

  As he wipes his mouth, Alto feels a moment’s disquiet at bringing the visiting detective into his personal vendetta but he quickly tells himself that the end will justify the means and that if McAvoy knew the truth, he would volunteer his services. Alto is simply sparing him the burden of that conversation.

  “Detective,” he says, trying to sound as sober as he can. “You’re here? Nearby? What can you see?”

  “Apartments. Offices. A little alley with a sign for a toy company. Where are you?”

  “Surveillance vehicle, not far away,” says Alto, eyes closed. “This is a big operation so I’m doing you a major favor letting you near the scene. When the arrests go down, things may get messy. We have officers inside but if they move early, they’ll blow their cover.”

  “What’s happening?” asks McAvoy, sounding nervous. “Is this to do with Brishen?”

  “Look, I can’t say much,” whispers Alto. “There’s a man inside. Good-looking. Expensive clothes. Answers to the name of Murray Ellison. He’s one of ours. But the girl he’s with is a civilian and we want her out of there. We can’t risk warning her, so it’s up to you.”

  “Me? I’ve got no authority.”

  “We’re all cops, Sergeant,” says Alto, feeling bad but knowing he has little choice if he is to ensure that Ellison does not leave the club with another girl. “You simply have to go inside and double-check that he’s in there. If there’s a girl with him, we need to get her away from him. There’s an agreed code. You simply approach the table where they’re sitting and
you explain that the police know all about him and that she should get herself away from him before he slips something in her drink. I’d do it myself but my face is known.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line. Then McAvoy’s voice comes back on, stern and strong. “Detective Alto, I might be new in town but I’m not a complete fool. Whether it’s a joke or an initiation or simply something to pass the time, I want you to know that it’s not appreciated. I’m tired and I have information to share with you and when I’ve shown it to you, I want you to share with me. Now, tell me your location or I’m going back to my hotel.”

  Alto starts to protest, then runs out of steam. “He’s a date rapist,” he says, his voice wheedling. “This is what I do. I follow him. I warn people not to go near him. I try and stop them becoming the next victim. But the bouncers won’t let me in and I’m in no state to be believed. I know he’s got himself a target in there. You just need to warn her. Tell her who he is. What he does . . .”

  For a moment, there is only the sound of whistling and the wind. Then Alto jumps in his seat as the passenger door opens and the big Scottish detective peers down at him, face half in shadow and half in light.

  “Lie to me again and we’ll fall out,” says McAvoy softly. “Now, tell me who this bastard is and how we stop him.”

  —

  The man to McAvoy’s left is dressed in a way that he presumed had gone out of fashion around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He is a vision in a beret, round spectacles, and fawn trench coat. He’s not smoking a Gauloise but he looks as though he would dearly love to be. He’s sipping from a china cup that sits on a floral saucer, and the small, lank-haired woman he is talking to seems to be urging her internal organs to start shutting down out of sheer boredom.

  On the street, the man would appear remarkable, but inside the bar he does not provoke comment. McAvoy would hate to label somebody with the word “hipster” or “beatnik,” but his vocabulary is offering him no alternatives. This is a club for the ultracool, the painfully sophisticated. The Toytown has been styled as a 1920s speakeasy—the kind of place where Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky would sip bootleg whiskey in the company of good-time girls while discussing who lived and who died. Its decor is true to the period, with crushed-velvet chaise longues, opulent candlesticks and chandeliers, wooden floors, and soft red lights. The cocktails are served in cups and saucers and there is even a proper old-school telephone booth next to the toilets and a cigarette machine on the wall. McAvoy was tempted to take photographs to show Roisin but the light is too low and he fancies that the image would come out looking like a whore’s boudoir. Instead, he tries to take a mental picture of the rest of the clientele. The majority are under thirty, and McAvoy could take a shot at the social status of the women who sprawl around the circular table or lounge in opulent armchairs. These are people for whom money is not a problem. They are the sort of people who could use the word “zeitgeist” without irony, and who think they’re performing an act of benevolent largesse when they give away last year’s designer dresses to thrift shops. It is an almost exclusively white crowd, and while McAvoy is no more familiar with their accents than any visitor to American shores, there is something about them that makes his brain fill with phrases like “Ivy League” and “weekend in the Hamptons.” He does not feel comfortable here. Feels even less so since he spotted Murray Ellison.

  McAvoy is not letting himself think too hard about the implications of what he is about to do. He can imagine all too clearly how his actions would sound if repeated.

  Yes, sir, I was called to the scene by a detective I have only met once before who asked me to go and warn a girl I had never met before that if she stayed with Mr. Ellison, her life may be in danger. No, sir, I have never met the man before . . .

  Ellison perfectly fits the description offered by Alto. He is sitting on a wooden stool, one leg angled across the other to form a number 4. He is sipping from a cup and watching, head cocked, as a blond girl kneels at his feet. She is rolling thin cigarettes on the varnished wood and her movements suggest she has had too much to drink. Whoever Ellison arrived with, he seems to be without company now. The girl’s own cup and saucer is a little off to one side. McAvoy wonders whether Ellison has spiked it yet and realizes he is in no position to ask. He knows nothing about this man. All he has is the word of a New York detective whose speech is slurred with alcohol. Were he to articulate his thought processes, McAvoy would say that he is doing this because, above all things, he needs Alto on his side. Whether or not Ellison is guilty of the crimes Alto accuses him of is not for McAvoy to say. If he is, McAvoy intends to prevent it happening again. If he is innocent, the worst that happens is that Ellison will find his chances of seducing this girl sorely impeded.

  “Another?” asks the barman. He’s wearing a bowler hat, suspenders, and a stripy shirt and has an apron around his waist.

  “Ginger ale,” says McAvoy, reaching into his pocket and depositing his last ten-dollar bill on the bar.

  “Meeting someone?” asks the barman, pouring his drink and doing complicated things with a stirrer and straw.

  “Not sure,” says McAvoy, ad-libbing. “I’ve got bad eyes. That chap over there, with the blonde . . . I think he’s a friend of a friend but I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Do you know him?”

  The barman looks over McAvoy’s shoulder. He shakes his head. “Not somebody I’ve seen before. Not much of a drinker. He’s on sparkling water. Got a White Russian for his lady friend there, though she’d already had a few before her friends left.”

  McAvoy nods, accepting his drink and the pittance in change. He gives a little sigh of resignation, then turns from the bar and crosses through the throng of drinkers and up the stairs to the main lounge. He looks up at the artwork that comes into focus as he approaches Ellison. Finds himself surveyed by the soft-focus eyes of voluptuous nymphs in voluminous satin, staring out from behind dusty glass and gaudy golden frames. The walls are coated in textured purple wallpaper embossed with flowers and swirls. For a moment, McAvoy truly feels he is approaching a Luciano or a Lansky figure and feels himself start to sweat, as though he is about to pull a gun. Instead, it is his phone he retrieves from his pocket.

  Murray Ellison looks up as McAvoy looms above him. The girl raises her head from the job of rolling cigarettes as his shadow falls across her. Up close, he reckons she is probably no more than twenty-one. He peers at her eyes. They are glassy.

  “You’re Murray Ellison,” says McAvoy chattily. “I’ve read all about you. In the papers, wasn’t it?”

  The man looks untroubled by the sudden interruption. He could not look more languorous if he were wearing a towel and holding a soap-on-a-rope.

  “You are. You were in the papers. You got away with raping that girl. The one who died.”

  McAvoy starts to color as he says it. Forces himself not to. The girl is looking up at him, confused.

  “You’re brave,” says McAvoy, turning his attention to her. “Last girl who went home with this guy ended up dead. He had to spend a lot of money to get away with it. You’ve got some serious courage.”

  Ellison smiles, showing good teeth. “Friend of Alto’s, are you? That man’s going to get himself in trouble.”

  “Alto? Not sure I know the name. I just know that you’re not taking this girl home tonight. That’s final. So enjoy the rest of your water. Have a sip of your lady friend’s tipple if you reckon you can stay awake afterward. Then get yourself on home.”

  Ellison does not look at the girl. He keeps his eyes fixed on McAvoy’s. McAvoy does not want to look away first but he senses movement and has no choice. He realizes that the noise of the bar has dropped to a hush. People are looking at him. Instantly, he feels himself shrink. He cannot stand the thought of being an object of such scrutiny, but he also knows that this is his chance.

  “Do you know Murray?” he asks, raisi
ng his voice and addressing the room without turning away from the grinning man. He knows he is terrible at things like this but also knows what Pharaoh would do if she were here and finds himself channeling her for the crowd. “Keep a beer mat over your teacups, ladies. Take a good look at his face. Got away with rape and murder, did this one. I don’t think I like that kind of luck. I reckon that nice, liberal, law-abiding people like yourselves probably don’t want to drink with a man like this. So when I’m gone, I’d love it if you helped him feel unwelcome.”

  McAvoy finally takes his eyes off Ellison and addresses the young girl, whose own eyes are starting to look like they belong to a doll. “Can I take you home?” he asks her.

  “Who do you think you are?” asks Ellison. “I’ll find out your name and finish you, whoever the hell you are. Alto’s a psychopath. He’s got a vendetta against me. This is harassment and I swear, it will cost you both.”

  McAvoy ignores him and has to fight not to breathe a sigh of relief as the girl gathers her things and starts to stand. She seems unsteady on her feet, and McAvoy has to stop her from stumbling. He feels her wrap an arm around him and the act feels like that of a child. She weighs next to nothing. She smells of sweet liquor and cigarettes, perfume and expensive shampoo. He holds her as gently as he can and then moves them both away from the table. He keeps his eyes on Ellison until they are at the stairs and then turns, maneuvering himself and the girl toward the door. The other drinkers part as he sidles through them. At the door, the two bouncers step aside without a word.

  “Christ,” says McAvoy, breathing out as the cold air hits him. In his arms, the girl shivers. He turns her to him and raises her face with his chin. Her eyes are heavy and her mouth seems slack. McAvoy no longer has any doubt that she has been drugged. He picks her up like a child and hurries down the wrought-iron steps into the alley. It’s a drab, gray space and the images of golden-age Hollywood stars that have been daubed onto the concrete walls do nothing to make it seem like anything other than the back entrance to a Soviet gulag. McAvoy walks quickly down the passageway and then up the stairs, emerging onto the street with the girl still in his arms. Alto’s Honda is waiting by the curb. Alto has the window down and his eyes look more alert. He sticks his head out as McAvoy approaches.