A Dark and Broken Heart

by R.J. Ellory

  I think all these things, and then I think: Who the hell are you kidding? You think you’re gonna fool anyone with this, most of all yourself? You’re a dumb son of a bitch. Hell, you couldn’t pour piss out of a shoe if the instructions were written on the heel. Five minutes in your company is the best argument anyone could ever get for compulsory sterilization.

  And then I take a couple of bennies, maybe a Adderall or Desoxyn—whatever I can get—and it all kicks into life. I see things in a different light, and I think: To hell with it; it’s all gonna be fine. Balance it all out with some Klonopin or a Xanax or two, and I start to make sense of things. Things start to look less fractured, more straightforward. Get some drinks. Maybe the Cedar Tavern where they have that old bar that was saved from the Susquehanna Hotel. Go down there and hang out with the ghosts of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Vincent O’Hara, and then drive down to the Bridge Café for soft-shelled crabs and a hanger steak . . . World sure looks seven shades of different after that.

  I’ll do that tonight, but I’ll keep Jack Daniel’s—great friend that he is—at arm’s length. For tomorrow I need my wits and my wisdom. Tomorrow is the day when it starts to turn around one eighty and go in the right damned direction.

  It has to.

  Just for once, it has to.

  3

  LIKE CALLING UP THUNDER

  The inside of the Ford Econoline E-250 cargo van smells like a post-game locker room on a hot Sunday afternoon. Four men have sweated inside it for the better part of an hour, back and to the left across the junction, out of line of sight of the building. Vincent Madigan is up front, passenger side; Bobby Landry is behind the wheel; Laurence Fulton and Chuck Williams in back. Landry will stay in the vehicle, keep the motor running. Vincent Madigan will lead the assault, in through the back second-floor windows, coming at them like a tidal wave of shock and awe. That’s the ticket here. This is the free pass for the job. They’ll never expect it, and that element of surprise is the only damned thing they have. Madigan has a sawn-off three-inch Mossberg on a loop from his shoulder and under his overcoat. He has a .44 in back of his waistband. Williams has an M-16 in a canvas duffel. Fulton doesn’t like long-shooters, and has gone for a .45 and a .38. It’s going to be very noisy. And they plan to leave no witnesses.

  By reckoning, by past experience, trusting everything that has happened before, Madigan expects four men in the house. The rear of the house is not where they keep their eyes. Eyes are always out front. Eyes look for the money, and when the money comes up, well, then—and only then—are they all eagle-eyed out back. These guys may be tough, but they’re not the brightest lights in the harbor. That, and the simple fact that Sandià owns the whole neighborhood and no one in their right mind would even consider robbing him . . .

  But Madigan hasn’t got any room to maneuver; desperate situations call for desperate measures.

  Madigan, Fulton, and Williams will be up on the roof of the outbuilding before the delivery’s even made. The outbuilding adjoins the property, its roof sitting beneath the window by three feet, no more. The way it goes is this: Landry’s out in the street. He sees the money going in the front. He radios Madigan, and Madigan, Fulton, and Williams are coming through the upper floor as the money reaches the top of the stairwell. The four goons are dead in a hail of gunfire, and then the money goes out the back, along the alleyway beside the house, into the van, and away. Five minutes, tops.

  Madigan closes his eyes. He feels the rush. He feels the punch of the thing in his lower gut. If this goes, then maybe there’s an out for him. If this dies a death, then regardless of whether he makes it out of the house there’s no chance. If he doesn’t get caught by the cops, Sandià will find him. And then there will be the inevitable conversation, and Sandià will torture Madigan for a month and leave his heart in a box on the sidewalk in front of the apartment where his kids live. This is what Sandià will do. This is the kind of man that he is.

  Landry grips the wheel. His knuckles are white. Madigan watches him for a moment, and then he glances over his shoulder at Fulton and Williams. Any other day and he would be kicking the crap out of people like this for the money they owed Sandià. But today? No, not today. Today is different.

  “We’re out of here,” Madigan says quietly, and such is the tension and anticipation in the van that they would have gotten that message had he only thought it.

  Fulton opens up the back door.

  Williams goes first. Blue jeans, tan work boots, a black jacket with the collar up against the cold. Over his shoulder is the duffel. It’s all in his eyes, his body language, his gait—the fear, but also the need to feel that fear.

  Madigan nods at Fulton. Fulton does the two-fists-clenched, I’m ready for this gesture, and then he’s out the door as well. He follows Williams, is no more than ten feet behind him, and Madigan waits for a good five minutes. He allows ample time for them to walk back around the block and come up to the alleyway beside the house from the far side.

  “Whatever happens,” Madigan tells Landry, “whatever you hear, whatever the hell you think might be going on in there, you don’t take off until I’m back. I don’t care if Zeppo comes back here with half his head blown off. I don’t care if half of Costa-fuckin’-Rica comes out of that house with Harpo’s head on a stick and his balls in a paper bag. You don’t go anywhere until I’m in here with you. You get me?”

  “Hey—” Landry starts, and he smiles. He’s done this kind of thing before. He knows the score. He knows what’s meant to happen and what really happens are sometimes as far from each other as north and south.

  “Hey nothing,” Madigan says. “You just say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Groucho.’ That’s all I wanna hear right now.”

  Landry nods. “I got it, man. I know the deal here.” He bangs the steering wheel with his palms a couple of times for emphasis, and then he grips it again like a lifeline.

  “So we’re good?”

  “We’re good, man. We’re good.”

  Madigan tucks the leather loop of the Mossberg over his shoulder and buttons his overcoat. He jerks back the lever and the door opens. He steps down into the street and looks back one more time at Bobby Landry. He’s a young guy, only twenty-five. He has a thin film of sweat varnishing his forehead.

  Madigan closes the van door and starts walking. At the corner, he glances back. The only giveaway is the thin cloud of fumes issuing from the van’s exhaust. In this neighborhood? Someone parked up in a vehicle with the engine running? Well, that person has something going on that someone else is going to disagree with, for sure.

  Madigan nods one more time at Landry, and then turns the corner.

  At the rear of the house, Fulton and Williams are already down on their haunches side by side, backs against the wall of the outbuilding. The roof of the building is no more than ten feet from the ground. A simple boost, and they’re up there. They sit quiet—all three of them—and Madigan can see the light in their eyes. He knows he has it too. It’s a light like nothing else. It isn’t fear, not exactly. Maybe it’s fear and excitement and anticipation all bound up together in that moment when you know you might die. Madigan has experienced it so many times it’s like one of the family. It’s something that regular folk will never understand. You could give it a name—could be the best damned name in the world—and people still wouldn’t understand it. Not even soldiers, because they’re not fighting two enemies. Here he has Sandià’s people, and he has the police. The po-lice. Screwed either way.

  Madigan breathes deeply. It is cold. He exhales and watches his breath dissipate. His pulse is regular, his heartbeat too, and he feels the blood in his veins, thin like water. He did a couple of Dexedrine earlier. Kicked things up a notch. He’s okay. He feels a balance. He did just enough, and it’s all good.

  He checks the handheld. Can’t miss word from Landry in the van. That delivery arrives at the front door, and in that moment they’re up on the roof and over to the window. In that moment. No sooner, no later.
The money coming in through the front door puts all eyes on the street. No one will be looking their way. These guys ain’t that good. And if they’re seen from a property that faces the rear of the building . . . well, this is the neighborhood. No one says a thing. Not a word. And sure as shit no one calls the po-lice. Down here it doesn’t work that way. This isn’t Gramercy Heights or Chelsea. This is East Harlem. Suck it up, motherfuckers; only way out of here is in a squad car or the coroner’s wagon.

  Fulton goes to speak, but Madigan silences him with a shake of his head. Williams has got the bag laid out flat at his feet. It’s unzipped, and Madigan can see the dull sheen of the M16’s barrel. Fulton is a gangbanger, and Williams isn’t that far off. They want blood and mayhem. No class. No subtlety. They want to see people exploding. Fireworks in a butcher’s store. And when they’re done, they’re gonna want to go and screw teenagers. These are the kind of folks he’s now socializing with.

  The handheld crackles once, but it’s just a burst of static. He checks the volume, the small red light on top. Williams instinctively reaches for the M16. There is electricity everywhere. He can feel the raw copper taste in the back of his throat.

  Madigan stays his hand. Williams closes his eyes and holds his breath for just a second.

  A bead of sweat breaks free from Madigan’s hairline and starts down his forehead. He wipes it away.

  “To hell with this,” Williams hisses, and it’s little more than an exhalation of pent-up nerves.

  “Chill, chill,” Fulton says, and Madigan looks sideways at the man, and behind the light in his eyes he sees the thing that makes them do this. The hunger. That’s the only word to use. It’s a hunger, a need, a reason to live. More often than not it’s a reason to die, but until then it’s just who and what they are. They kowtow to no one. They grant respect to no one but their own kind, and even then it is granted begrudgingly. These are precisely the kind of people who would do something as foolish as robbing one of Sandià’s drug houses. That’s the second reason Madigan chose them.

  When Bobby Landry saw the beat-to-shit Chevy Caprice pull up in front of the house, he slowed down inside. Everything went quiet. He held the radio in his hand for a moment, and then raised it to his mouth. His finger hesitated over the TALK button. He watched carefully. He had expected an inconspicuous car, something that no one would give a second thought to, but this was taking it to the extreme. This could be nothing more than a crowd of Costa Rican junkies after a score.

  He breathed slowly. Timing was everything. If the crew went in the back before the money arrived, they’d be dead. If they went in too late they be dead all over again.

  If they’d known faces it would have helped. Any of Sandià’s people could be on the delivery run. And Sandià had no shortage of mules and carriers and grunts.

  Three men came out of the Caprice. Two crossed the sidewalk and stood at the gate. The third hung back with the car. They were scanning the street, no question. If a fourth man got out, and if that fourth man was carrying a duffel, a suitcase, a backpack—anything that was big enough to contain a quarter mill in used bundles—then Landry would be on the radio to the crew at the back of the property.

  Landry held his breath. It was good. This was it. This was the deal. Right here, right now.

  The man at the side of the Caprice leaned down to speak to someone in the car. That someone then came out slowly, glancing back over the way, all eyes and ears, and once he was out of the vehicle and upright Landry saw the bag.

  This was it.

  The gig was on.

  He pressed TALK.

  Madigan was on his feet, his back to the wall, the side of his face against the left edge of the window frame. Williams stood to his right, Fulton over on the other side, and through the glass Madigan watched for the first sign of the door opening at the base of the internal stairwell. He’d been inside once before. He knew the layout well enough. The front door opened into the lower hallway. The stairwell started not six feet away and ran a straight line up to the second floor. The window was ahead of a turn in the stairs. From his vantage point he could see the light from the street as the front door opened, see the light disappear as the front door was closed behind the delivery crew, and then they would start up the stairs. One man ahead, the carrier behind him, the other two behind him. Madigan’s Mossberg through the window would take out the lead man, maybe the carrier. In that moment of stunned confusion generated by the attack, all three of them—Madigan himself, Fulton, and Williams—had to be through the aperture and firing before these assholes even had a chance to tell the time. The narrow stairwell, the fact that the two front men would fall backward into the latter two—these things Madigan counted on. Surprise and gravity. Shock and awe. Bodies in motion and then at rest.

  The light was there.

  Madigan even heard voices.

  He reached out his right hand and stayed Williams once again. He nodded to Fulton. Fulton looked like a man with a fire in his gut. He had the .45 in one hand, the .38 in the other. Doc-fucking-Holliday.

  The delivery crew started up the stairs. The lead man was eight or ten steps up before the front door closed below him. One more step, one more second, and then Madigan was turning, the Mossberg ahead of him like an extension of his own body, his finger jerking, the slide coming back a second time, a third, the window exploding inward.

  The first barrage took the guy’s face away. Madigan hit him just beneath the chin, but the trajectory was angled upward by just a few degrees. The instinctive response of the lead man to pull his head back away from the source of the blast meant that his face was parallel to the angle of the shot. Most of his features were on the ceiling before he knew what the hell had happened.

  The weight of the front man, the fact that he fell backward into the carrier, the narrow stairwell—all these things worked in Madigan’s favor. He was through the devastated window and firing more shots down into the melee of arms and legs before any one of them had a chance to pull a gun, let alone fire it.

  Fulton and Williams came in behind Madigan, and the three of them let fly with a barrage of gunfire sufficient to decimate not only the four men now heaped at the bottom of the stairway, but the risers themselves, the banister, and much of the lower hallway. Plaster and wood fragments, chunks of masonry, carpeting, blood, bone, flesh, teeth, and the smoke and noise and screaming of the men beneath them. Another day in hell. It was a turkey shoot. It was a massacre.

  Madigan stopped firing only when there were no shells left.

  Fulton and Williams followed suit.

  The silence was eerie, far more unsettling than the war that had just taken place. The smoke hung in a thick pall above them. The smell of sweat and cordite and blood was thick enough to taste.

  Madigan took the stairs at their edges for greatest support, descending tentatively, hoping that the risers didn’t collapse beneath him. The idea of landing feet-first in the disaster zone that lay there not ten feet below him was . . . well, picking Costa Ricans out of the treads and welts of his boots was not something he’d scheduled for this Tuesday afternoon.

  Williams, using his common sense, lay down on the landing and leaned over toward Madigan. He held out his hand, and Madigan gripped it. From halfway down the stairs he could reach the bag, but it was beneath bodies, and it took Madigan some time to work it free. One of the handles was snapped, the bag punctured in numerous places, spattered with blood, but the bodies had acted as a shield against it and it was remarkably intact considering all that had taken place.

  Madigan pulled it up by the good handle, and Williams assisted him in his return to the upper landing.

  At the top Madigan took a second to check the contents of the bag. Thick wads of hundreds and fifties. Looked like a great deal more than he’d anticipated. He smiled to himself, but gave no outward acknowledgment to Fulton and Williams.

  “Go,” he mouthed, and followed them to the window. He indicated with his hand, knowing full well that t
hey would be hearing nothing clearly for a while. In his own ears the ringing was intense, deafening almost.

  They were out, across the roof of the outbuilding, down into the alleyway and into the street within thirty seconds.

  The van was already on the go as they reached it, Madigan up front with the bag, Fulton and Williams in back with the weaponry.

  Landry took the first three hundred yards at speed, and then he hit First Avenue and slowed right down. He headed southwest, followed a road parallel to the FDR Drive, kept within the limit, took it easy, and when he crossed East 117th, he started to relax. No sirens. Not a sound. No one following them.

  “Okay, where to now?” he asked Madigan.

  “Change of vehicle near the Metropolitan Hospital. There’s an alleyway off of East 109th. Get to the junction with Second and I’ll direct you.”

  Madigan glanced over his shoulder. Fulton and Williams were grinning like crazies queuing for meds.

  Went like clockwork. Went like a dream.

  Half an hour’s work for way more than a quarter mill.

  Madigan clutched the bag on his lap. He could feel the bundles inside. This was the way out. Lawyers, Sandià, whoever the hell else wanted a piece of him, they were all history. Rock and roll, motherfuckers . . . Rock and fucking roll.