The Bloodline Series Box Set

by Gabriella Messina

  Another storm passed; now, onward to the real battle. “Finished?”

  Ivan shook the cup, drained the remaining ginger ale in two slurps, and then shook the empty container, offering it to Sam. She took it, tossing it expertly into a nearby garbage can before standing up. “All right, time to go.” Ivan hesitated, fiddling with the newspaper, shuffling his feet. “C’mon, Grampy, if we don’t hurry up, you’ll miss your appointment.”

  “Good.”

  “Grampy!”

  “All right, all right, we go.” Ivan struggled to his feet. I sat for too long. Maybe if he told himself that enough times, it would be true. His body was always stiff, always slow. This part of getting old was completely uncalled for. It was bad enough to look old, to have health problems, these things were to be expected. But to be crippled... it was not fair.

  Ivan staggered slightly, and Sam reached out to help him. He quickly waved her away. I am no invalid, not yet. I can do this. Sam held up her hands, stepping back and giving Ivan some room to move. He started shuffling forward, his steps becoming surer as he progressed. I can do this. I will do this. Ivan felt Sam behind him. She was following him just close enough to help him if he needed it, allowing him to walk without her assistance and retain some dignity. She understood what that meant, that it was not simply about his independence.

  She is a good girl, Ivan thought as he slowly walked and silently blessed her for her kindness.

  FULTON STREET SUBWAY Platform

  The platform was busy but not overcrowded. Ivan sat on one of the benches against the wall, his newspaper lying beside him as a warning to others: I don’t care how crowded it gets or how tired or infirm you are, don’t sit here.

  Sam checked the time on her phone, comparing it to the time on the illuminated sign above. “The train is due in about five minutes, Grampy. We should get there on time.”

  “I feel fine, Nepoata, I do not need to go to the doctor.”

  Sam smiled at the Romanian word. Though it simply meant “granddaughter,” the term had always been his special name for her.

  “Sometimes you have to go even if you do feel good. They need to check your blood thinner level and your blood pressure. They wanted to check your blood sugar, too. I suppose they still could, they can’t expect you to go all day without food. If they want to reschedule, it will have to be later in the week.”

  Ivan nodded solemnly. “Maybe if you get me some of those little filled cupcakes, I will have enough sugar.”

  Sam gently patted him on the shoulder. “It’s not that kind of sugar, Grampy, and if it were, eating more of it wouldn’t help.”

  Ivan shrugged, his mind clearly still on the subject of sweets. “I like those little cupcakes, all chocolate with the white filling. Delicious. You know, Harold said they were to be canceled. Tell me, how do you cancel a cupcake?”

  “Not sure, but I’ll tell you what – you behave yourself and talk to the doctor and I’ll get you some.”

  “And lemonade?”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed and she hesitated, struggling all the while not to smile. “You drive a hard bargain.” She offered her hand. “Deal.”

  Ivan took her hand and they shook on it.

  Moments later, the rush of air from the tunnel heralded the arrival of the number “4” train heading uptown. People on the platform began to move forward toward the yellow line, all shifting in anticipation of where one of the trains many doors would come to a stop.

  Ivan sat still, watching the crowds gather. He looked up at Sam, a question in his eye. Sam watched as the train pulled into the station and began to slow. As the crowds pushed forward, a space cleared down the platform a short distance. Sam turned to Ivan.

  “Ready?”

  Ivan nodded and reached out for his granddaughter. This was one of those times when holding onto someone wasn’t a sign of weakness, but of intelligence. Sam helped Ivan to his feet, retaining a hold on his arm, her own hooked around his. They started toward the open area, weaving through the crowd as the train pulled to a stop and the doors opened.

  The exchange of one set of passengers for another began and Sam watched closely, trying to gauge how much time they had and whether she would have to pull NYPD rank and get the conductor to hold the train.

  As the crowds started to thin and a way through opened in front of them, Sam edged Ivan towards the open doors. She glimpsed the crowds inside – and the lack of any empty seats. Shit, fuck, damn... Sam looked at her grandfather and saw the concern on his face. There was no way he would be able to stand all the way there. Sam smiled confidently. “Don’t worry. You’ll get a seat if I have to pull my gun.” Ivan shook his head, his glare softened by an amused smile.

  Just as they reached the doors, a broad-shouldered transit cop jostled in front of them and pushed into the car. Sam held onto Ivan, preventing him from stumbling then glared at the man. “Jerk-off,” she muttered and started forward. Ivan hesitated. “Grampy, come on!”

  Sam turned to further reprimand her grandfather face-to-face, but something about his expression stopped her cold as well.

  She saw something there she had seen on many a perp’s face. She’d seen it on the faces of family members waiting to hear whether a loved one would live or die. She’d felt it as she waited to hear whether she would walk again. But despite everything he had been through in his lifetime, she had never seen that emotion on her grandfather’s face, never thought she would.

  Ivan Karolyi was afraid.

  Sam kept her voice low as she questioned her grandfather: “What’s the matter? Are you sick? What’s wrong?”

  “Not here. We must not sit here.”

  “Why?”

  “Is there a problem here?” The transit cop stood in the center of the entry, a deep frown furrowing his brow, his hands on his hips. Sam wasn’t sure if his was taking the intimidating stance deliberately or if he was just that much of a “big galoot,” as her grandmother used to say, God rest her.

  “No, no problem here, it’s fine. We’ll go to the next car.” Sam turned to steer Ivan towards the next door, but he was already moving that way on his own. “Um, right, the next car. Sorry.”

  The transit cop jerked his head toward the direction her grandfather had taken. “He all right?”

  Sam bristled at the intimation but maintained a calm exterior. She’d hate to have to explain to Lenny and the Captain why she shot a transit cop in the head – “He’s fine, just fine. Uniforms make him nervous, that’s all.”

  She turned to follow Ivan, hoping that was the end of it. It wasn’t.

  “Bad experience, huh?”

  Sam bit her bottom lip... hard. Calm, calm, calm... She stared at the front of his uniform trying to find something to focus on that would help her calm herself, help her focus long enough. His MTA ID clipped to his uniform... J. Prutzmann...

  Sam zeroed in on the letter “P,” and could quickly feel her mind focusing, the rage ebbing a bit.

  When she replied, her voice was surprisingly loud, enough so that it caught the attention of several people within the subway train car. “Yeah, he had a bad experience... in Auschwitz.”

  Sam noted some of the looks from the passengers inside, some startled, some embarrassed. The chime sounded and the doors began to close. Sam scooted through just in time and the train lurched forward.

  Sam carefully worked her way toward the back of the car where Ivan was sitting on a bench. He had managed to get a seat as far from Mr. Transit Cop as he possibly could. Sam sat down beside him, took hold of his hand. “Well, good job getting a seat. How’d you manage that?”

  Ivan smiled, patted her hand. “Gypsy charm.” He looked forward out the window into the blackness beyond.

  Sam smiled and patted his hand in return. Her gaze fell to his hand and his left arm where the sleeve to his shirt had pulled up, revealing his wrist and an expanse of arm beyond that. There on the inside of his arm was a mark, a tattooed letter “Z.” She remembered asking him about it as
a child...

  “The Nazis wanted to keep track of all Zigeuner, all Gypsies.”

  Her youthful innocence always questioned why, why did they want to keep track of us? And her grandfather’s reply was always the same:

  “They needed to keep track of us so that they would know how many graves they would need to dig and how deep those graves would need to be.”

  Her grandmother always reprimanded him then. “Don’t tell her such things! She doesn’t need to know that now.” And her grandfather would always lay a gentle hand on her head as he replied:

  “Samantha needs to understand who she is, where she came from, why we are who and what we are.”

  2

  SAM STOOD IN FRONT of the drink coolers, scanning the bottles one by one, tapping her fingers to the beat of the salsa music playing in the background. Or maybe it was a merengue?

  This was the third bodega she’d gone into searching for lemonade and she was dangerously close to just picking up some lemons and sugar and squeezing the damn drink herself. She moved down to the last cooler, her lips pursed tightly. They had to have a lemonade. She scanned each shelf from the top to the bottom –

  “Ah! Yes! Thank you, God!” Sam froze momentarily, the sound of her own voice startling her. Hadn’t meant to say that out loud, let alone at that volume. She glanced around, but other than the clerk up front, who was thoroughly engaged with a popular telenovela on the TV, the bodega appeared to be empty.

  Sam opened the cooler, grabbed two of the 8-ounce bottles, letting the door slam shut as she walked up the aisle toward the front counter. Passing a rack full of packaged baked goods, she grabbed one containing two chocolate cream-filled cupcakes. She held it for just a second, smiling at the thought of her grandfather and his taste for goodies.

  Sam deposited the lemonade and cupcakes on the counter. The chubby Latina clerk, “Tina” according to her nametag, hesitated briefly as the Latin soap on the TV went to a commercial before turning to Sam and smiling shyly. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve been trying to catch up on this week’s episodes and -”

  Sam held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got time.”

  Tina smiled, appraising the items in front of her. “Anything else?” Sam shook her head and Tina began picking up items to ring them up. When she came to the cupcakes, she stopped, looking at them longingly. “I love these things.”

  Chimes rang, signaling the door opening. Tina stiffened visibly, and Sam turned to see what had made the other woman so nervous.

  A young man had entered, not more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Painfully thin and gangly, his clothing and manner screamed street – and something else. His coloring was terrible, a grayish pallor that reminded Sam of a character from an old horror movie that she used to watch with her dad. It was probably drugs, heroin or something new on the street. Sam never liked to judge people but if drug addicts felt anything like they looked, the fact that they continued to pursue their high was testament to the insanity that these substances could induce.

  The kid was clearly ill, but that wasn’t the something else Sam was picking up from him. There was something feral about him; he entered the store, his gaze quickly shifting to-and-fro as he made his way toward the coolers in the back. He glanced at the women briefly as he passed.

  Sam and Tina shared a look. Tina smiled nervously, looked over at the cash register. “Your total is six fifty-two.” Sam laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter. Tina picked up the money, turned to the cash register and began typing on the old-style machine. “Out of ten.” The cash register drawer opened with a bang.

  “Give me the money.”

  Both women turn at the sound of the husky voice. It was the kid, now brandishing a knife. He’d evidently doubled-back almost immediately and was standing in front of the counter.

  Tina froze, glanced at Sam. Sam blinked, nodded her head, two barely discernible movements that communicated volumes to the frightened clerk. Relax, chica, I’ve got this... give him what he wants and just don’t do anything stupid. Sam slowly began to turn, bringing her body around and keeping her eye on the knife all the while.

  The kid started shaking and raised the knife, pointing it toward Tina. “All the money, bitches. Now!”

  Tina handed over the minimal contents of the register. The kid turned on Sam, gesturing and waving the knife at her. Sam watched the movement for a few seconds, then grabbed for the knife as it moved past her.

  The attack caught the kid off-guard and allowed Sam to get the upper hand very quickly. That battleground was quickly lost as the kid got his wits about him again and began to fight back.

  Damn, he’s strong... how could someone who looks that bad be this strong? They stumbled into displays, knocking food and bottles all over the floor.

  The kid swung at Sam, the knife blade whirring by her throat very closely. Too close. Sam moved quickly, grabbing the kid’s knife-wielding hand just below the wrist and wrenching it around. The knife swung around, slashing a deep cut across the kid’s arm and side as they tumbled toward the floor.

  Startled, the kid dropped the knife and gaped at Sam with a strange mixture of emotions on his face. He was definitely shocked at being wounded, but there was something else, too. Almost seemed like it hurt his feelings or something.

  The kid scrambled to his feet, the cash clutched close to his body as he stumbled through the food and bottles on the floor and pushed his way out the door.

  “Call 911!” Sam jumped to her feet, pulled her police badge out of her coat pocket and clipped it to the front of her belt. “Tell them you’ve been robbed, and Detective Karolyi, badge number 7339, is in pursuit of the suspect.” She climbed through the debris on the floor, calling out to the clerk as she headed for the door. “Do it now!” Without waiting for a reply of any sort, Sam pushed her way out the door and into the street.

  Sam looked right, then left. No sign of the kid. Fuck! She bent down, drawing a small Lorcin semi-automatic pistol from her ankle holster. The L380 had been a gift from her grandfather years ago and she always carried it.

  She double-checked the badge, making sure it caught the sunlight a few times and that nearby looky-loos could see she had a right to be there and carrying. Now to find this little –

  Sam looked down and picked out a small drop of blood on the ground close to her feet. A few steps ahead she saw another drop of blood, then another and another. Sam smiled and took off running, following the trail of blood drops around the corner and up 11th Street toward Greenwich.

  Sam’s chest started to ache as she neared Greenwich Avenue, her legs tingling from the strain of running full tilt for over a city block. Ordinarily, a city block would have been nothing... if you were running uptown, where all the streets followed the well-ordered grid system. Down here among the old streets of Manhattan, chaos and disorder reigned; a city block could run anywhere between mere steps and massive. Sam dashed across Greenwich, narrowly missing a bike messenger, and continued down 11th Street, hoping her legs would hold out long enough for her to catch this kid and –

  Sam pulled up quickly and turned back. She held her gun at-the-ready and hurriedly retraced her steps. She slowed as she approached an alley, hesitating for a moment, peeking around the corner briefly before disappearing into the dark walkway at a run.

  The alley was typical for this part of Manhattan, a relic of times when horses and carriages were the dominant mode of transportation and most of the people living down here considered important, at least on a city-scale. Many of the old mews were converted into small apartments and the courtyards around them into makeshift urban gardens and patios.

  Sam ran through, dodging potted plants and wrought-iron café chairs as she went. She was approaching Bank Street with still no sign of the kid. Fuck! He went this way, I know –

  Sam stopped suddenly, bending to look at something on the ground near her feet. Money. Bloody money. She checked her weapon briefly before continuing on, moving at
a quick pace.

  Bank Street was in sight, its one-way traffic intermittent. Sam slowed to a walk then stopped as the sound of groans reached her. She crept forward, edging over to the left to peek around the corner of the dumpster ahead of her.

  The kid crouched on the ground near the dumpster, his injured arm clasped against his chest, the other arm clutching at his abdomen. He moaned, grasping at his stomach in pain, the sounds becoming more and more like sobs.

  Sam hesitated, her gun trained on him. The kid, evidently gripped by a particularly sharp pain, cried out and slumped into a heap on the ground. Sam lowered her gun and took a step toward the kid. He looked up suddenly, his eyes wide and his teeth bared like an animal.

  Animal... Sam held out her unarmed hand, palm outstretched. “Okay, kid, easy. Take it easy. We’ll get you to the hospital, okay?”

  The kid looked at her intently, his upper lip slowly lowering to hide his teeth. Sam watched the emotions travel across his face, something she had witnessed many times as a patrol officer and then detective. Those feelings of fear, comfort, distrust, trust, anger, acceptance; it was as if people in these situations were going through all the levels of grief in a matter of seconds or minutes. You never knew just what state people would be in after they went through these colossal waves of emotions. Sam fingered the trigger of her gun carefully. Always best to be prepared.

  In the distance, the sound of wailing police sirens shattered the fragile moment into pieces. The kid started, nearly jumping to his feet. He staggered away from Sam, still clutching his stomach, stumbling and tripping toward the street ahead.

  “Shit.” Sam followed the kid out of the alley and onto Bank Street.

  The sirens grew louder as they neared and, perhaps spurred by the sound, the kid picked up his pace. Up ahead was the busy intersection of Bank Street with Greenwich Avenue. Vehicles rushed along and around the oddly arranged street corners and turns, with bicycles and pedestrians weaving their way among them.