House Reckoning

by Mike Lawson

  “DeMarco’s back in D.C.,” Hanley said.

  “How do you know?” Quinn asked.

  “He used a credit card this morning to buy breakfast at a place in Georgetown.”

  “I need to find out where he’s staying, Hanley.”

  “I think he’s staying at his own home. After I heard about the credit card charge, I called his home phone and he answered.”

  What the hell was DeMarco doing? Had he given up? Or had he just returned to D.C. to regroup? Whatever the case, it wasn’t going to change Quinn’s plan.

  “What do you want me to do, boss?” Hanley asked.

  “Nothing,” Quinn said. “I think the guy’s given up after what happened the other night. We’re taking the shuttle to D.C. as planned this afternoon and if DeMarco tries something, you and Grimes will deal with him, but I doubt he’ll try anything.”

  “Okay, boss,” Hanley said.

  Quinn finished packing, then walked into the living room, where his wife was on her cell phone with somebody. She was always on the phone. “Have you finished packing?” he asked. “We’re leaving in two hours.”

  She cupped her hand over the phone and said, “Yes. I packed last night while you were doing whatever you were doing.”

  He wondered if that was a zinger. Last night, he’d told her he had to deal with a few urgent issues before they flew to D.C., but he’d actually been with Pam. “Good,” he said. “I have to go out for just a moment, but I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He ignored the question and left the apartment, and ten minutes later was using a public phone. He called Tony Benedetto’s hospital room and when the old man answered he said, “He’s at his home in D.C. You know who I’m talking about. Get this finished, Tony.”

  Tony started to call Oskar Pankov after he finished talking to Quinn, to tell Oskar what Quinn had told him: that DeMarco was at his home in Georgetown. Then something occurred to him. He’d already called Oskar once and a second call might not be smart, and it also wouldn’t be smart to mention DeMarco’s name or address on the phone.

  He remembered the big stink a while ago about the NSA monitoring everybody’s calls and emails, and although he thought the likelihood of somebody eavesdropping on a call he made was almost zero, why take the chance? One thing that Carmine had drilled into his head when he was young was that telephones were dangerous.

  He thought for a couple of seconds, then called a guy he used to work with, a guy named Shorty for obvious reasons. Shorty had been able to pick any lock in existence before he got all crippled up with arthritis. He told Shorty to come to his hospital room, and because he owed Tony and because Tony said he’d pay him a C note to run an errand for him, Shorty showed up half an hour later. After Shorty stopped pretending that he gave a shit that Tony was dying, Tony handed him a sealed envelope containing a note that said DeMarco was at his home in Georgetown, and told Shorty to deliver it to Oskar’s restaurant in Brighton Beach.

  “My wallet’s in that closet over there,” Tony said. “Take out a hundred and get going.” After Shorty left, he thought about checking his wallet to see how much Shorty had really taken from it, but no way did he have the strength to get out bed.

  He closed his eyes and debated whether he should take more morphine—he had a little button he could push that would drip the dope into his veins—but he wanted to delay that as long as possible. The dope put him in some weird half-awake state where his brain didn’t work and where he had memories of events he was sure had never really happened. The doctor also told him that he could push the morphine button as many times as he wanted—that the only thing that mattered at this point was minimizing his pain. And when the doc said this, Tony had thought: Bullshit. The doc was really telling him to push that fuckin’ button until he overdosed because there wasn’t anything else that could be done for him. Well, he wasn’t ready to commit suicide yet.

  He heard the door open and he opened his eyes to see who it was. He was expecting it would be one of the nurses just coming in to check on him—the nurses, he had to admit, had been really nice—but it wasn’t a nurse. It was his damn kid.

  “Hey, Pop. How ya doing?”

  “How am I doing? I’m dying, you fuckin’ numbskull. Where the hell you been? And how come this is the first time you’ve come to see me?”

  Anthony Benedetto Jr. was a small man in his forties, his face prematurely wrinkled from booze and dope and because he liked to sit in the sun. Tony thought his kid’s face looked like a white raisin, and the raisin got smaller every time he saw him. Also, every time he saw him, he couldn’t help but think that it was his fault his son had turned into the loser-cokehead he was. If he’d spent more time with him, been more patient with him, maybe . . . The problem was, although he loved his son, he didn’t really like him. He felt bad that he’d had to screw over a decent guy like DeMarco to save Junior’s useless hide again.

  Answering Tony’s question, Anthony Jr. said, “I checked myself into rehab after they let me out of the can; I figured I’d better do that before I got into any more trouble.” Before Tony could respond, he went on. “I still can’t believe they’re dropping the charges against me. Anyway, when I got out of rehab, I went by the house to see you and found out you were here. Mrs. Giacoma next door told me.”

  Tony hadn’t told Junior about the deal he’d cut with Quinn to get the charges dismissed, only because he hadn’t seen the kid since he’d gotten out of jail. And bullshit, he went into rehab. They don’t let you out of rehab in just a couple of days, not unless you walk out. What Junior had most likely done—just based on the way he looked—was go out to celebrate after he got out of the can; he’d hooked up with some of his doper friends and had been on some kind of bender, snortin’ shit up his nose.

  “Anyway, I’m here now and I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, Pop. Can I get you anything? Magazines, a book, something?”

  Tony almost said: A book! When the fuck have you ever seen me read a book? But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “Just sit with me awhile. Okay, Anthony? Just sit here with your old man until he falls asleep.”

  Tony knew that after he died, Anthony Jr. would inherit quite a bit of money and all the property he owned, and then he’d lose everything gambling, or he’d blow it on dope, or the money would get taken from him by guys smarter and harder than him—and there wasn’t anything he could do about that. All he could do was protect him from Quinn—and hold his hand for a while before he died.

  “You remember the time,” Tony said, “when me and you and your mom went down to Jersey and rented them horses?”

  Anthony Jr. brayed a laugh. “You on a horse! That had to be the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. I thought you were gonna shoot that fuckin’ horse.”

  35

  Emma had no intention of asking Neil to dig into Stephanie Hernandez’s past, and her plan to use DeMarco as bait was a ruse.

  Emma thought it unlikely that Quinn would try to do anything to DeMarco before the confirmation hearing. After he’d been confirmed and was running the Bureau, then he might do something, but she figured DeMarco was safe until then. What she was really doing was making sure DeMarco didn’t do something crazy, like go after Quinn again on his own. Boxing him up in his own house with Mike and Dave watching him would keep him pinned down until she could execute the only plan she could think of to get Quinn and to keep DeMarco out of trouble.

  Emma had never met Mary Pat Mahoney before. She’d heard about Mahoney’s wife from DeMarco, and based on everything DeMarco had said, she sounded like a decent woman. Why on earth she’d married Mahoney, Emma couldn’t imagine. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She could imagine how a man with Mahoney’s charm could have seduced her when she was young, but she couldn’t imagine why Mary Pat had remained married to the reprobate for forty years.

  When she arrived at the Watergate and told the doorman she was there to see Mrs. Mahoney, the doorman said, “And m
ay I ask who you are, ma’am?”

  Emma gave the doorman her name and added, “Tell Mrs. Mahoney this concerns a man named Joe DeMarco and that Mr. DeMarco is in trouble and needs her help.”

  “Joe’s in trouble?” Mary Pat said when she opened the door.

  “Yes,” Emma said, “and I’m hoping you can help.”

  Emma liked Mary Pat Mahoney the moment she met her. Like her husband she had snow-white hair and blue eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. Mahoney had a good-sized gut and a broad butt; Mary Pat was slender. Mahoney had the eyes and complexion of a drinker, and he smoked, as well; Mary Pat seemed to glow with good health. Mary Pat was a vegetarian—Mahoney a meat eater. Mary Pat exercised daily—Mahoney considered lifting a tumbler filled with alcohol to his lips all the exercise he needed. She was also different than her husband in that she was kind and generous whereas John Mahoney, in Emma’s opinion, was a selfish scoundrel.

  “Please come in,” Mary Pat said. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  They took seats in the living room. It was nicely but not ostentatiously decorated. Prominently displayed were pictures of Mary Pat’s three daughters.

  “I’m assuming you know that your husband fired DeMarco,” Emma said.

  “What!” Mary Pat said.

  Mary Pat had known DeMarco for a long time and a few months ago, DeMarco had saved Mary Pat’s middle daughter, Molly, from going to prison for insider trading. So Emma knew that she and her husband owed DeMarco. One of the things Emma also liked about Mary Pat was that when she discovered her daughter was avoiding a prison sentence for a crime she’d committed—a crime that was partly due to Molly’s gambling and alcohol addictions—she insisted Molly go to work for UNICEF for three years, about the amount of time she would have spent in prison.

  “Why did John fire him?” Mary Pat asked.

  Emma told her the story: DeMarco had recently learned that Brian Quinn had killed his father and he was planning to destroy Quinn’s reputation during the confirmation hearing. However, when he went to Mahoney to tell him what he was doing—and essentially to ask for Mahoney’s help avenging his father’s death—Mahoney had ordered DeMarco not to do anything until he’d conferred with the president.

  “In other words, your husband was considering the political ramifications of exposing Quinn, and Joe didn’t care about the political ramifications. Then I’m afraid Joe lost his temper. He said he was going to reveal some of the things your husband had done in the past if he took any action that would hinder Joe’s vendetta against Quinn.”

  “I see,” Mary Pat said—but the look on her face said that if she had to choose between protecting DeMarco and protecting her husband, she would choose her husband.

  “Congressman Mahoney naturally took offense at being threatened by Joe and fired him. And then things got worse after that.”

  Emma then explained how DeMarco had decided to kill Quinn, and almost succeeded, but fortunately she was able to keep that from happening.

  “He was going to shoot the man?” Mary Pat said.

  “Yes.”

  “My God. But I’m confused,” Mary Pat said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Your husband can still help Joe if he wants to and I’m hoping you can talk some sense into him. When he fired Joe, they were both pretty emotional and I’m hoping the congressman has calmed down since then.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Pat said. “John can be rather stubborn and he’s not known for his forgiving nature.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t understand how John can help Joe at this point, either.”

  Emma explained.

  Mary Pat looked at her watch. “He’s supposed to be home in an hour. I was just about to go for a walk. Why don’t you come with me—John and Joe have told me some interesting things about you and I’d like to learn more. When we get back, John should be here and we can talk to him then.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Mahoney said when he saw Emma sitting in his living room drinking tea with his wife.

  Unlike his wife, Mahoney had encountered Emma several times when she’d worked cases with DeMarco. He didn’t like her, because she was the sort of person—unlike himself—who always did the right thing and he couldn’t control her.

  “John,” May Pat said, “why didn’t you tell me you fired Joe?” Before Mahoney could answer she said, “Now sit down and stop being rude and listen to what Emma has to say.”

  “Humpf,” Mahoney said, and walked over to a liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Wild Turkey and poured two ounces into a glass without adding ice.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink for one day,” Mary Pat said. Emma had smelled the booze wafting off Mahoney the minute he stepped into the apartment and his wife apparently had, too.

  “No,” Mahoney said. “Especially not if she’s here.”

  Mahoney sat down.

  “Let me tell you what’s been going on since you fired DeMarco,” Emma said.

  She then went through the whole story again for Mahoney: how DeMarco had gotten a video statement from Tony Benedetto that he’d planned to spring on Quinn at his confirmation hearing; how Tony had betrayed DeMarco and how Quinn had stolen the video from DeMarco’s house; and then how Quinn had disappeared the teacher who could have talked about Quinn covering up Connors’s death.

  Mahoney’s reaction to all this was to lift a white eyebrow in surprise and take another sip of his drink.

  “Then after Joe decided he had no other choice, he got a silenced weapon from somebody and was about two seconds away from killing Quinn the other night,” Emma said, and told him all that had transpired in New York.

  “Jesus,” Mahoney said. “I can’t believe he’d do something so stupid.”

  “Quinn killed his father, Congressman,” Emma said.

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “And he’s going to be the next FBI director unless you do something.”

  “Like what? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Do you know a New York politician named Stephanie Hernandez? She’s the borough president in Queens.”

  “Yeah, I know who she is. She’s a little pain in the ass who’s always busting Chris Barlow’s balls.”

  “In addition to being a ballbuster,” Emma said, “she’s also Carmine Taliaferro’s daughter.”

  “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Mahoney said.

  Emma then explained what DeMarco suspected about Stephanie Hernandez. When she finished speaking, Mahoney sat for a moment, finished the drink he was holding in his hand, then got up and poured another.

  “For God’s sake, John,” Mary Pat said.

  “So are you going to help DeMarco?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mahoney said.

  “Well, I do,” Mary Pat said. “You’re going to help him and that’s all there is to it. He’s a good man and you owe him and you know it.”

  Mahoney glowered at the two women. He was being double-teamed and he didn’t like it. His wife was bad enough but Emma . . . Emma was downright dangerous.

  36

  Stephanie Hernandez had no idea why John Mahoney wanted to see her. All she knew was that she got a call from his secretary last night and was basically ordered to come to Washington this morning. She could have told Mahoney to go to hell but knew it would be stupid to thumb her nose at the most powerful Democrat in the House without at least hearing what he had to say. She suspected he was going to tell her to quit going after Chris Barlow’s head—and his seat in the House—and then he’d give her a bunch of bullshit about how her day would eventually come.

  Mahoney scared her. She’d never met him face-to-face, but she’d seen him on TV. On TV, he was all bullshit and blarney, charming everyone, telling jokes, getting teary-eyed if he talked about the vets, acting like he was the champion of the common man. He was full of crap, and he usually looked like he wa
s half in the bag. But she’d heard other stories, too, about how if you crossed him he’d stab you in the back—or maybe stab you right through the heart while he looked into your eyes. He was a tricky, vindictive son of a bitch and you didn’t want him for an enemy unless you were willing to switch parties.

  “You can go in now, Mrs. Hernandez,” Mahoney’s secretary said. She’d noticed the secretary had been a little cool toward her, not offering her coffee or anything, not apologizing that Mahoney had kept her waiting half an hour. She wondered if there was some sort of message in the secretary’s behavior or if the woman was just naturally rude.

  Mahoney didn’t bother to stand when Stephanie Hernandez entered his office. “Take a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair in front of his desk, then he took a sip from his drink and just stared at her. She had small brown eyes, thin lips, and a combative square chin; she looked like the type that wouldn’t back down in a fight. She was short—maybe five foot two—and broad-hipped. With the green pantsuit she was wearing, she looked like a shrub.

  Mahoney was actually grateful she wasn’t good-looking; he knew himself well enough to know he could be manipulated by good-looking women and sometimes the desire to get into their pants could distract him from what he knew he needed to do. That wasn’t going to be a problem this time.

  Mahoney waited until the silence became uncomfortable and she spoke first. “Why did you want to see me, Mr. Speaker?”

  Mahoney was no longer the Speaker of the House. He’d lost the job a few years back when the Republicans took control of the House, but he’d been the Speaker for so long that people still addressed him that way.

  “I wanted to see you because I know you’ve got something on Brian Quinn, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Quinn? The commissioner?”

  “Yeah, that Quinn. And don’t try acting stupid with me. You know damn good and well who he is, and I’m sure you’re aware that he’s been nominated to run the Bureau.”

  He could tell she didn’t know what to say next; she was trying to decide if she should be polite or tell him to go screw himself. Before she could decide, Mahoney plowed ahead. “Your old man was a mobster up there in Queens and—”