The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella

by Steve Cavanagh

  Chapter Eight

  The cold was a living, breathing beast that sucked at my very bones. It willed me to inhale, purely from the shock of all-enveloping pain. Cold so bad that it burned my skin like bleach. Lips bursting from the air in my lungs. I spun around in the water but could see nothing. Yet I was moving. The current was fast and dragging me deep. I was aware of a thicker darkness just beyond my line of vision. Even my eyes stung, but not from the freezing temperature of the water—more likely from the poisons floating within.

  The pier stanchion of the East River Bikeway came up fast, and I had to brace my arms over my head as I hit one of them. Panic now. I sank further, my arms and legs straining to keep me from falling to the bottom. I managed to grab a stanchion and pulled. Hand over hand, I climbed my way to the surface so fast I hit my head on a bar as I came up.

  Blessed, gasping, desperate air. Eyes wide, fresh blood from the wound on my scalp flowed into my mouth. I didn’t care. To my left I saw the bikeway dip down to the water. I used the wooden beams to pull myself toward it, and I gave a sigh of relief when my hand hit a wire mesh. It took everything I had to haul myself over that short fence. For a good minute or two I lay on my back at the bottom of a set of tiled steps that led to the fence and the water’s edge. If I’d jumped into the river anywhere else, I might not have had a chance to climb out of it.

  Blind luck.

  I tasted salt in my mouth from the river and the blood. From where I lay, I couldn’t see the ferry, and no one on the bike trail would be able to see me, sunk below the boardwalk on the bottom steps of what was once a slipway for canoes.

  Only when my teeth began to pummel each other did I realize that I was trembling fiercely. The shakes had set in, and the pain from the dirty ice bath returned with a vengeance. I moaned and stood. Stamped my feet. Took off my shirt, which felt as cold as a priest’s hands. I’d already lost my tie somewhere. Rubbing my arms vigorously, willing the blood into each limb, I tried to shut my mouth before I broke a tooth. My jaw wouldn’t stay closed, no matter how hard I clenched. Blood in my mouth; I’d managed to bite my tongue, but not too bad.

  Twisting the water out of my shirt, I then slapped it on the stone steps. Puddles of water appeared everywhere as the river drained out of my suit pants. Patting my pockets, I discovered I’d lost my office keys and cell phone. My car keys had made it, along with my dripping-wet wallet. In my left pocket I found the Post-it note with McAllister’s cell number. The last digit of the number had washed away, with only the faint traces of what could’ve been a three, a five, a six, or an eight. Thankfully, the dip in the river had masked the bloodstains on my shirt. It was just one sodden mess. I felt my scalp and found the bleeding had slowed.

  I had to move. My shirt clung to my skin, and I left it hanging out over my pants.

  Slowly I made my way up the steps. Nobody on the bike trail beneath the overpass, and a small crowd of teenagers to my right, maybe seven hundred feet away. They had nestled beneath the overpass and were examining their cell phones. To my left, the last of the passengers were filing onto the ferry, headed back to DUMBO. None of the passengers would head to the top deck. The bodies could lie up there, undiscovered, for some time. Straight ahead, on South Drive, a line of people were climbing aboard a bus. I made for the line, glancing toward the ferry with every other step.

  Two men bolted off the ferry. Their guns drawn, heads circling; they were looking for me. The passengers were being shuttled off the ferry. The two men had known to check the top deck, and had found the bodies. I ducked behind a supporting wall for the FDR Drive, taking shelter in the shadows as I watched the bus line. The last two people were about to board.

  Hold.

  A grandma in a floral dress fumbled for change as she charmed the driver. The young guy in the ball cap behind her shook his head, his MetroCard in his hand.

  Another quick glance. The two cops jogged my way. They were closing in, only two, maybe three hundred feet away.

  At last the grandma paid the bus driver and began fussing with her purse. I watched the young guy in the ball cap shake his head from side to side. The steel beams roofing the overpass above me screeched and whipped in metallic song, strummed by the long-distance haulage trucks that shook the road. It was the same sound as the high-pitched vibration that preceded a subway train. That monotonous sound was soon accompanied by the slap-echo of two pairs of fast, hard-soled shoes. They were close. I had my back to the concrete support wall. The crowd of kids standing at the opposite support wall, maybe eighty feet away, put their phones away and looked casual. They’d spotted the cops coming their way.

  My shoe touched an empty soda can. I fished a wet MetroCard out of my wallet, threw the can to my right and ran left. The can bounced down the steps I’d ascended only seconds before. I got to the bus at the same moment the driver hit the switch to close the doors.

  Chapter Nine

  I got an arm through the doors, which arrested their movement.

  “Hey, buddy, watch out,” said the driver.

  I climbed in, swiped my card. The driver looked at me, shook his head, and muttered under his breath, “New York City.”

  I lost myself in the crowd standing on the bus. I got plenty of looks. Even in Manhattan, where people have seen everything and heard everything, a soaking-wet guy in a crumpled shirt and squelching shoes was enough to catch me some attention.

  The doors closed and we moved into traffic. Glancing over the shoulder of the guy in the baseball cap, I caught a glimpse of the two cops coming back up the steps that led down to the river. They were looking left and right, arms by their sides, chests heaving. They were too far away for me to get much of a look at their faces. One cop was black, the other white and older.

  Watching those two gulping for air, I suddenly became aware that I, too, was out of breath. The short run to the bus, or the pain from the cold, it didn’t matter. I looked and smelled exactly like a guy who’d hauled his ass out of the East River only moments before.

  I took a bill out of my wallet, folded it, and ran my fingers along the note, pulling out the moisture with the pressure from my grip. The guy in the cap who’d gotten on board just before me was tapping away on his cell phone. I offered him the five dollars if he’d let me make a couple of calls.

  He turned his back on me.

  “You forget your swimming costume, son?” said the old lady on the seat in front of me, the grandma who’d taken her time with her change.

  “Something like that. A gust of wind blew rain water off a store canopy. Just my luck to be standing beneath it. Say, could I borrow your cell phone? Mine got wet. I need to call my wife and tell her I’ll be late home.”

  She looked at me sideways. It hadn’t rained all day.

  “I can give you ten dollars for the call,” I said, handing her my last wet bill.

  “Okay, just don’t run off with it,” she said.

  I dialed home. Answering machine. I tried Christine’s cell phone, and she picked up. I could hear eighties rock in the background, and I knew she was with her sister, Carmel, at her place.

  “Hi, it’s Eddie. I lost my phone, again. I called the house.”

  “Looking for me?” she said. “I got bored waiting in an empty house, so I put Amy in the car and came to Carmel’s. Amy is asleep upstairs and we’ve got wine, Van Halen, and Ghost on DVD for later. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No. I don’t mind.”

  “You’re not even home yet, are you?”

  “No. I’m glad you’re at Carmel’s. You didn’t notice anyone hanging around outside the house tonight? No strange cars in our street?”

  I heard her tell Carmel to turn down the music.

  “What’s going on?” she said, an urgency to her tone now.

  “Nothing. The Hernandez case is getting hot. That’s all. We’re not popular with the NYPD at the moment, so it might get a little hairy for a while. It’s best if you and Amy stay with Carmel for a couple of days. Let Am
y stay home from school. In fact . . . it would be better if you all stayed inside until this blows over.”

  “Have you been threatened?”

  “No . . .”

  “Bullshit, Eddie. This is the Rockmount case all over again. I told you to be careful. We don’t need this kind of pressure. No case is worth that kind of hassle, not again.”

  She went quiet, but I could hear the tears and the panic welling in her throat.

  “You promised me,” she said.

  She was right. I did make a promise.

  Before Amy was born, while we were still living in a damp basement apartment in Brooklyn, I took on a case against Rockmount Pharmaceuticals that became real messy. Stones through the windows, car tires slashed, dog shit left in our mailbox. And worse.

  I was used to it. I’d had guys trying to take my head off since I was thirteen years old. Mostly they didn’t fare too well and never tried again. But Christine was terrified, and that killed me. When the case finished, I’d promised never to put us in that situation again.

  “They’re cops. I didn’t expect this,” I said.

  “Well, it’s happening again. I can’t do this, Eddie. The long nights; you’re never home. I miss you. I love you, but I’m lonely. When you do make it home on time, you bring a bottle . . .”

  “Chrissie, it’s a rough time at the moment. This case is make or break. You know that. We discussed this. If I drop the case, we’re finished.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. My parents can help us out, or I could try to find something part-time.”

  “I want to take care of you. There’s nothing part-time in corporate law out there, and whatever you do, don’t ask your parents. Leave them out of it. You know how that will end. Look, the trial starts tomorrow. If it goes well, we can have a better life. No more long hours. Family time. For now, stay at Carmel’s house. Don’t go out. Order pizza. Amy loves pepperoni. When she’s—”

  “I know what she likes. Okay, we’ll stay until the trial’s over. Be careful. Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ll call you. I was about to say you should call the security company, the one that offered personal security. Tell them we want a car outside your sister’s house tonight. It should all be over in a day or two. They gave us good advice about the Rockmount thing.”

  “Can we afford it?” she said.

  “We can’t afford not to. Chrissie . . .”

  The line died before I could tell her I loved her.

  I told the elderly lady I had one more call. She said her stop was coming up and it had to be quick.

  Jack picked up.

  “Halloran and Flynn.”

  “It’s me. I need you to come pick me up.”

  “I’m just finishing up a game here,” said Jack.

  “Where are you?”

  “I quit Hanzo’s early and drove over to Manny’s place.”

  “I can’t talk right now. But this is serious. I need you, Jack.”

  “Sure. What’s wrong?”

  “Pick me up outside New York–Presbyterian in twenty minutes.”

  Chapter Ten

  I’d left the bus with the elderly lady, thanked her again, and meandered my way through alleys and side streets until I came upon New York–Presbyterian Hospital. All the while I thought about how cold I was, how I couldn’t tell Christine what had happened. She would freak. She would call the cops. Right then, NYPD were the last people I wanted anywhere near my family. I decided to keep it to myself for now. On occasion, Christine still woke up in the middle of the night, and I had to go check all the doors and windows. The Rockmount case had taken a toll on her. Those nights had become fewer as the years had passed and Amy grew. But the memory of that fear was still strong in her.

  What the hell had I gotten into?

  The Morgue Squad. What a name. Whatever they were doing, whatever I was close to, it was serious enough to take out a top-ranking IAB officer. If only Frost had told me what he knew. I’d decided I was already too far into this to back away. It would be easy to drop the case, hold up my hands and leave the police alone. But that would mean abandoning Maria Hernandez. It would mean abandoning Chilli’s unborn child. I couldn’t do either. I’d made a promise. And if Frost was right and McAllister had the evidence I needed, I could win the damn case. I needed something to swing the jury my way because we had a big problem. The only living souls who were eye witnesses to the incident were Marzone and his partner, Roark. We had nothing to counter their testimony.

  A small row of homeless men lined the corner of the hospital that led onto Gold Street. I put my back to the wall beside one of them and slid down onto my knees. In my state, I needed to blend in while I waited for a ride. The homeless man to my right looked old, although living on the street puts years on young faces. I thought he was fifty. He said I looked cold, and he offered me a blanket. I took it and thanked him. He said his name was Rob, and he was thirty-three. He apologized for not having any food. I apologized for not having any money I could give him.

  We shivered in silence. I watched the traffic, looking for Jack’s Caddy. Cars moved pretty easy on Gold Street. I remembered my dad talking about this street. There was an old story that the street got its name because of a wildflower that used to grow around the area, but my dad had a different theory. Gold Street was only a block away from 33 Liberty Street and the Federal Reserve. Plenty of gold in that building. He also told me the Federal Reserve could never be robbed, but in the early eighties a crew from Nantucket had succeeded in the next best thing. On the corner of Maiden and Gold, the Federal Reserve suboffice printed bearer bonds, millions of dollars of bonds every single day. A team of plumbers plugged the drains for the whole block and came calling. They said they were clearing every building on the block for the landlord so they needed access to the bathrooms, to check for the source of the problem. One of them managed to knock out a guard with a wrench, and they made off with a lot of paper. Nobody came after them and they were never caught. The story never made the news because the Treasury Department covered it up. The Federal Reserve needed to maintain a public image, the image of an impregnable fortress. If they let it slip to the NYPD or the FBI that they’d gotten turned over by a couple of plumbers with a socket wrench and a smile, they could pretty much guarantee to shave ten percent off the price of the US dollar.

  Ten minutes passed with the smell of traffic fumes in my nose. A light blue Cadillac crawled to a halt in front of me. It was an old model, from the late 1970s, and although it was a beautiful piece of machinery, it was probably the most impractical car possible for Manhattan. Jack didn’t need a parking space; he needed a landing strip. My knees burned as I got to my feet. I’d been sitting in wet clothes, hunched up on the sidewalk, for far too long. Jack lowered the driver’s tinted window.

  “Thanks, Jack. I need some money—what have you got?”

  “What for?” he said.

  “Never mind. What have you got on you?”

  A billfold appeared in his hand—not as thick as it usually was after a night of cards. He pulled off a hundred-dollar bill and said, “This enough? Hey, how come you’re soaking wet?”

  “Thanks. I’ll explain in a second,” I said. I returned Rob’s blanket, thanked him again, gave him the hundred-dollar bill, and told him to make sure he got a hot meal. He thanked me, but I was already walking around the Caddy toward the front passenger door.

  I got inside, turned up the heater to full, and said, “Thanks. We got a lot to talk about.”

  Jack said nothing. He signaled and pulled out. I’d decided to give it to him from the beginning.

  “I found a note on my windshield tonight . . .”

  My voice died in my throat. Jack won the pink slip for the Caddy in a poker game ten years ago. He shaved every other day, didn’t dry-clean his suits as often as he should have, his apartment was a mess, but he washed and polished the Caddy every single day. Two years ago he picked me up
from my house so we could go to the movies together to watch The Lincoln Lawyer. Jack had insisted that I take off my biker jacket before I got in the car—in case the metal zipper damaged his plush bucket seats. Here I was, soaking wet, smelling like salt and shit in Jack’s precious car, and he hadn’t said a word.

  The Caddy’s tinted windows probably weren’t street legal. Now that the sun had set, very little light penetrated the thick darkness of the interior. The only light came from the dash. As we drove along, a streetlamp briefly shined a spark on a fat sweat ball that rolled down Jack’s skinny cheek.

  I stared straight ahead, watched the brake lights of the car in front, and let it happen. Something else was taking over control of what I thought, what I said, what I felt—instinct. It felt like a ghost stroking the back of my neck. That ethereal touch electrified every sense, every neuron, every nerve I possessed. They all fired at once, sending the same message to my brain.

  Someone is sitting behind me.

  Chapter Eleven

  My head was in a vise that only let me look ahead. Even the thought of turning around sent a pain shooting though my neck and into my brain. Tension headaches. I’d suffered from them before.

  Jack drove and didn’t speak.

  I stared out the windshield and didn’t move.

  Seconds ticked by with only the whirr of the cooling fans, the smooth roll of the white wall tires on asphalt, and the clug and chug from the old engine. And then a new sound. The soft friction of leather, just a whisper, and then I felt that cold leather around my throat and the back of my head thumped into the headrest.