by S. J. Rozan
Her voice again, persistent. “What was your involvement in the death of Jack Molloy?”
“You don't listen, do you?”
“If I'm wrong, show me where. What was your—”
“Zip. Zero. Nada. None. I make my point, or I have to draw you a picture?”
“I'm interested in the truth, Mr. Spano.”
“Bullshit. You and your paper are interested in smearing shit all over me. I don't know what I ever did to you, but, sweetie, people who play with fire get burned. Ask Jimmy McCaffery.”
“What can you tell me about the negotiations going on before Jack Molloy's death?”
“Negotiations? Jesus Christ, lady, what's wrong with you? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You and Molloy were making some kind of deal. What was it?”
“Deal?” (A change in Spano's voice. This must be when he adjusted his game to Laura's, to her tough-broad-reporter, to her cold eyes that told him she'd faced down nastier specimens than Eddie Spano. At least, that's what her eyes were supposed to be saying. That was how, heading over in the cab, she'd decided to approach him. Had she? It sounded like that, on the tape. But she didn't know. She didn't know.) “What was this ‘deal' supposed to be about?”
“After Jack Molloy died, you ended up with a lot of the Molloy empire.”
“Empire? Shit, you're killing me. Molloy was a punk, his old man was a small-time ass-wipe.”
“But you don't deny you wound up running the Molloy rackets?”
“Rackets? You learn to talk like that from the movies?”
“You don't deny it?”
“Of course I deny it. I don't know anything about any ‘rackets.' I'm a businessman.”
“What kind of business?”
“Real estate. Insurance. I have investments all over this island.”
“So did Big Mike Molloy. Drugs, gambling—”
“Lady, are you too stupid to live?”
“Was Harry Randall?”
“What?”
“Too stupid to live. Someone murdered Harry Randall. He was breaking this story, and—”
“Fuck this shit! Lady, that's enough. One more word of this shit in the paper, and—”
Now—there, on the tape—now the knock, now the hinges whining.
Now the pictures started.
Eddie Spano, swinging his flushed face from Laura to the door. “Oh fuck, what now? Who the hell—?”
And the new voice. “Phil Constantine, Mr. Spano.” A pause, and then, “I work for you.”
Laura could see them standing just inside: the lawyer tall—taller than he'd seemed in his own office, and she remembered thinking that was odd—suit and tie, mud spots on his polished shoes. The young man—this must be Kevin Keegan, she realized, the center of this storm—red hair, muscled, and leaning on crutches. This picture was a snapshot, though, not a movie yet.
But the sound track went on.
“You work for—wait, you're that lawyer fuck? Jesus! What is this? Are you as psycho as she is? You do not work for me. I don't know what the hell you people want—”
“I just want to hear you say it, Eddie.” Constantine was smiling. Laura saw that. Smiling. A glittering, hungry grin. “I've been your bagman for twenty years, and I just want to hear you say it. I want you to tell Kevin what it's all been about.”
“Look. Shit. I don't know what you people are up to, but I've had enough.” A scraping sound as Spano pushed back his chair. Laura had an idea he'd been about to say something else, but Constantine's eyes had caught hers, and Spano saw that. “Fuck,” Spano said instead. “What? You two in this together? This some kind of shakedown? Get the fuck out of here. All of you. Out.”
“Ms. Stone, that means you,” Constantine said. “We'll leave soon, too, Eddie. But I passed your money to Sally Keegan for eighteen years. I was a good boy. I didn't ask questions. Jimmy McCaffery said it was his, I closed my eyes and covered my ears and passed it on.
“I'm likely to be disbarred, Eddie. I may even go to jail. I just want to know what it was all about. I want Kevin to know. Ms. Stone.” Now Constantine turned to Laura, and the details filled in, spreading from the center to the farthest edges as Constantine said to her, “Ms. Stone, get lost. Mr. Spano wants this off the record. So do I.”
Laura was not about to get lost. What reporter could leave a scene like this? But she was thinking furiously. It was obviously her presence that was making Spano deny he'd used Constantine to pass the money; what reason would he have to lie to Constantine, even if McCaffery had been their go-between, even if the two had never met? If she left, so they could have this out alone, could she hide somewhere, lurk under the windows, eavesdrop? Outside a trailer on concrete blocks in the mud of a building site? The men with the American flag decals on their hard hats would spot her, circle toward her, surround her like a pack of wolves.
No, she'd stay until Spano had her physically thrown out (and maybe he wouldn't; after all, think how that would look in the paper) and play them off against each other. She'd done that before. It wasn't so hard. Everyone wanted to come out looking good, everyone wanted his story to be the one that was believed.
That was Laura's plan. “If you—” She never got any further than that.
“Fuck that!” Keegan exploded. “Let her stay! Let her hear it, let everyone hear it!”
“Kev—”
“No, Uncle Phil.” Keegan's voice took on a different tone, a tone Laura knew. She'd heard it in the voices of people she'd interviewed in those first days after the towers fell, people coming to accept what they had been desperately fighting: that the “missing” posters, the hospital searches, the frantic digging at Ground Zero, could not help them. It was the voice of someone admitting the shattering truth that a loved one was gone, and in that voice Kevin Keegan said, “No, Uncle Phil.”
LAURA'S STORY
Chapter 15
The Way Home
November 1, 2001
“Kevin.” Constantine spoke quietly to the young man, as though the two were alone. As though they stood on some wind-blasted height where nothing grew and nothing lived and everything had been torn away but the truth.
Keegan shook his head. “Don't. Don't tell me more lies, Uncle Phil. No more. You lied all my life.”
“Not about what was important.” Like voices on the tapes Laura had heard of calls made from the upper floors of the towers, people who understood they were certainly doomed but were determined to maintain contact until the end, Constantine's voice was calm. “Not about what mattered.”
“To you!” Keegan shouted. “What mattered to you! Me and my mom—oh, fuck. Fuck you!”
The young man looked wildly around, as much, Laura thought, to break the spell of Constantine's eyes as anything else. He spotted her but moved on, too furious to care who she was or what she'd heard. Constantine's eyes watched the young man the way you'd stare after a priceless possession torn away in a hurricane.
Keegan fixed on Eddie Spano. “You,” he said hoarsely. “I want to know. My dad, Uncle Jimmy, what was it about?”
“I don't know what the hell—”
“Don't do that! Don't lie like him, no more bullshit! Who shot Jack Molloy? Was it Uncle Jimmy?”
“Kid, I—”
Constantine said, “Kevin—”
“Why did my dad go to jail? What was the money for?”
From Spano: “I got no fucking idea!”
From Constantine: “Kev—”
“Uncle Jimmy's papers,” Keegan hissed at Spano. “What he wrote. Is that what's in them?”
“Papers? What fucking papers?”
“You lying bastard! Tell me!”
“Get the fuck out of here! You're fucking crazy, all of you! Get out!”
Keegan, green eyes blazing, swung forward on his crutches with a speed that took Laura by surprise. He shoved Spano against the wall before anyone could move. The whole trailer rocked. “Tell me the truth!” The crutches clattered to
the floor. Keegan squeezed Spano's throat. Spano clawed Keegan's face as Keegan shouted, “What did my father do? Why did he go to jail? Tell me the truth! Tell me! Tell me!”
Spano pushed and twisted; Constantine grabbed Keegan, tried to pull him away. “Kevin! Come on, Kev, come on!”
Keegan swung at Constantine. The blow was unbalanced and badly timed but had the unstoppable force of betrayal behind it. Constantine's head snapped back. Keegan, weight shifting to his bad leg, fell forward, seizing Spano again.
Spano struggled half out of Keegan's grip. Keegan pounded and punched. Laura wasn't sure if he knew who he was hitting, what he was screaming. Spano was shouting, too. And Constantine, not shouting, talking, talking to Keegan, blood on his face as he wrapped his arms around the young man, trying to make him stop, trying at the same time, Laura realized, not to hurt him.
Laura had jumped up but had not neared the struggling men. She was a reporter, she stood apart. Her chair had fallen over, but she was in the spot she'd been in since she arrived and so was in the perfect place to see when Spano, still caught in Keegan's grip, pounded, screamed at, bloodied, yanked open the desk drawer. He shouted, “Fuck you, you fucking lunatic!” and there was a gun in his hand.
From the New York Tribune, November 2, 2001
FIREFIGHTER SLAIN IN
SHOOTING INCIDENT
Survived Fall of North Tower
by Hugh Jesselson
Probationary Firefighter Kevin Keegan, who was pulled to safety by fellow firefighters from under burning debris when the World Trade Center's north tower collapsed on September 11, was killed yesterday in a shooting incident on Staten Island. Keegan was hit in the chest by a single bullet. He was taken to Staten Island Hospital, where he died three hours later.
Police have arrested Edward Spano, of Pleasant Hills, a reputed organized crime figure with alleged ties to the Bonnano crime family. Spano has been charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment.
The shooting happened yesterday morning in Spano's office at Chapel Pointe, a luxury Staten Island residential development. The circumstances surrounding the shooting are still under investigation.
Spano, as first reported by the Tribune on October 29, is believed to have been the source of payments made over nearly two decades to the dead man's family. These payments were made through attorney Phillip Constantine, a longtime Keegan family friend. Constantine, present at the scene of yesterday's shooting, was injured but refused medical attention. He was taken into custody and released this morning with no charges filed against him.
Also present was Tribune reporter Laura Stone, who was interviewing Spano at his office when Constantine entered with Keegan.
When Spano ordered the three to leave, a fight began. Spano pulled a gun from his desk and pointed it at Keegan. Laura Stone said, “It just made him madder. He jumped on Spano and choked him. Constantine tried to pull him back and the gun went off.”
Police have subpoenaed the bank records for the escrow account Constantine maintained for the Keegan family. It is alleged by some sources that the cash for the payments was passed from Spano to Constantine by FDNY Captain James McCaffery, who died on September 11.
Edward Spano will be arraigned today on Staten Island. He is expected to enter a plea of self-defense.
The investigation is continuing.
LAURA'S STORY
Chapter 16
The Invisible Man
Steps Between You and the Mirror
November 2, 2001
Morning in the newsroom. Laura, as always, early; other reporters drifting in one by one, stopping by her desk to ask, How are you doing? Are you okay? All of them sympathetic, all of them kind. But some—the honest ones, Laura thought—not suppressing their ironic and envious smiles when they said, Hell of a way to get a story.
Five clocks in plain view, none of them moving. Just get through the meeting, Laura told herself. Just that.
Laura's desk phone ringing. No, she thought, no, whoever you are and whatever you want, I can't. Even as she thought that, she grabbed the receiver up.
“Laura Stone.”
“Owen McCardle.”
An unfamiliar voice, a familiar name. Laura cast about. “I'm sorry—”
“Friend of Jimmy McCaffery's.”
Yes. “Yes, I remember. You were at Engine 168. Harry interviewed you.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Mr. McCardle, after what just happened—”
“I want you to come here.”
“I—”
“It's goddamn important, Miss Stone.”
Anger slammed Laura as though McCardle's fist had pounded her through the electronic distance between them.
Laura closed her eyes. But that brought, not longed-for emptiness, but—again, once again—the sight of Kevin Keegan, swaying, clutching his bloodied chest. Staring not at Edward Spano, the man who'd shot him, but at Phil Constantine, motionless, frozen. Only his eyes reached for Keegan. Then Keegan fell.
I want to go home, Laura thought. Not to Harry's empty apartment, or her own, not to anyplace in this ruined city. Home.
“It's goddamn important.” McCardle's voice, each word separate, a boiling fury.
Too tired to argue, Laura said, “All right.” What choice was there? With the sinking feeling that she knew the answer, she asked, “Where is ‘here'?”
The ferry ride, one more time. Manhattan shrank as Laura stood on the back of the boat in the bright sun and watched. She didn't want to look forward, couldn't bear to see anything more coming toward her.
From the terminal she took a cab, leaning back against the seat. After yesterday, she was not ready to be seen in Pleasant Hills.
The cab drove past a school, a red-brick building she hadn't noticed before. The thought struck her: I could teach. English lit. Shakespeare, Yeats, Auden. The echoing halls of her midwestern high school came to her, the blaze of golden trees in autumn, the blue of the lake. Let Jesselson have the rest of this. Let him do the digging to prove Spano killed Harry. I'll leave. I'll get out now. There's still time.
The idea was comforting and also exciting. Yes. After this interview. Whatever McCardle had, she'd take it down, hand it to Jesselson, pack up, and fly home.
Would you mind, Harry? she asked. Now that I'm this close, now that it's this obvious? Do I have to stay, and watch, the way we all watched the towers burn and fall and keep burning? This time, can't I turn away?
The house where the cab left her was compact, well kept. A white fence edged the front yard. Against it, yellow and orange chrysanthemums burned. The doorbell sounded a three-note chime, and the door was opened instantly by a man who had surely been waiting, waiting. He said, “Laura Stone?” and moved aside to let her in as though the answer were not in doubt.
She replied, “Mr. McCardle?” though there was no question about that, either. He had a drooping gray mustache, the rough, uneven skin of a man who spends his time outdoors, and angry gray eyes.
Unnerved by those eyes, Laura stopped just inside the door and asked as he closed it, “What's this about?”
McCardle shut the door, strode into the living room, pointed to the sofa. He sat in an easy chair but didn't speak. How shall I handle this, what should I do? Laura wondered. She waited for instructions from Reporter-Laura, but none came. And at that—Reporter-Laura's silence, her absence—a slow tide of fear began to rise.
“Jimmy McCaffery gave me that ten years ago.” McCardle's hands remained on the arms of his chair, but his eyes moved to a thick, yellowed envelope on the table beside Laura. “He said, Owen, hold this for me. Don't have to do anything with it, just keep it. I said, What the hell's in it, kid? Your will, something like that? He said, It's the truth. I just think it should be someplace. What do you mean, the truth? I said. About what? I'm not sure, he said. But I know it's the truth.
“So I kept it. Pretty much forgot about it. Even when Jimmy died. A lot of guys gone that day, a lot to think about.” M
cCardle's rough hand brushed at something on his pants leg. “I've been down at the pit, every day. You find this guy's belt buckle, that guy's wedding ring. Guys you knew. You know what that's like?”
Inside the fence at Ground Zero, Laura had seen the firefighters stop and lift something, some small, crumpled thing, from the dust and rubble. She'd tried to imagine what that was like.
She shook her head.
McCardle fixed his fierce gray eyes on her again.
“Wasn't until your paper ran that story. Not the first ones, about Jimmy, or Kevin. That other one, about the money, where it came from. I read it and thought, This is crap, I knew Jimmy, when he was here, when he was Superman. And then, like he was in the room, I saw him handing me that, saying, Owen, keep this for me, it's the truth.
“So I dug it out. I read it. I called that reporter, Randall, I made him read it.
“Next thing I know, Randall takes a dive off the bridge. Shit. I put that thing back in the desk. No one needs anyone else dying, not now. But at least, I think, at least the lies about Jimmy'll stop.
“But they don't. You just don't let it go. More and more crap, worse and worse—”
McCardle's hands were gripping the arms of his chair so tightly they threatened to rip the fabric. The muscle along his jaw bulged, ropy and thick.
“And now Kevin. Goddammit. Goddammit! You did that, Miss Stone. You got Kevin killed.”
Mutely, Laura shook her head.
McCardle boiled up out of his chair. He loomed over Laura. She thought he was going to seize her, hit her, tear her in half. She did nothing to stop him.
“Read it,” he snarled, and slammed out of the room, out of the house, leaving her alone.
BOYS' OWN BOOK
Chapter 15
How to Find the Floor
