A Dark and Broken Heart

by R.J. Ellory

  4

  SHAME AND PAIN

  My heart goes like a train. The four fifteen out of Grand Central. I’ve got the bag on my lap. My hands are sweating. I would choke someone to death for a couple of Mandrax. A couple of shots of Jack. Anything.

  Jesus Christ.

  The way those people just exploded down the stairs. It was a slaughter; no other word for it. Didn’t even have time to see our faces. The guy up front I’d seen before. I know his face. I’ve seen him with Sandià.

  I daren’t hold out my hands. They shake. I can feel them as they grip the bag. I can feel the money inside. Like freedom. Feels like freedom. Maybe.

  Landry is driving steady—not too fast, not too slow.

  Williams and Fulton are laughing like jackasses in back. I want to smack the pair of them quiet, but I’m not saying a word.

  Just need to get to the storage unit, change cars, get as far away from these guys as possible, and then disappear into . . . into where?

  Through the window I see familiar streets. We’re out of East Harlem and heading toward Yorkville.

  My scalp itches. The palms of my shaking hands are sweating. I look down at them. They feel like someone else’s hands. The hands of Orloff.

  Jesus, I’m losing it.

  Williams is laughing like a hyena. I turn round and look at him for a moment. He has kids. Fulton does too. Landry doesn’t. None of them are married. Smarter than me on that count. Some marriages work because each person thinks the other’s too good for them, like what did they do to deserve this person, you know? They try all the harder to keep the show on the road, and they’re both trying real hard and it kind of works out for a while. Me? Hell, after they got under the surface, when they really started to see behind the facade of charm and self-control, all the women I was ever involved with soon understood that I was way beneath them. Maybe it was exciting for a while—the unpredictability, the dangerous edges and sharp corners that lay just beneath that thin, thin veneer of social respectability. But that veneer wears away real quick, and then what you got? You got Madigan, Vincent Madigan, and all the demons of the underworld he brings along for the ride.

  Hell, where did it all go so wrong?

  Landry says something. I look at him for a moment and wait for the words to register, and then I get it . . .

  5

  DEATH PARTY

  “Left,” Madigan says, “and then sharp right at the end.”

  Landry follows the instruction, and the van bears left and then takes a right at the end of the alleyway and comes to a stop.

  Madigan sits quiet for a moment.

  They are all waiting for him to say whatever he’s going to say.

  He says nothing.

  Opening the passenger door, he climbs down from the van, walks to the end of the alleyway, and produces a set of keys from his pocket. It is only then that he notices how much blood is on his right shoe. He doesn’t have another pair. That was dumb. That was a case of not thinking it through. He would have to stop someplace and buy some sneakers or something, get rid of his shoes as fast as possible.

  He opens up the door, steps inside, flicks a switch, and waits as the garage door comes up slowly. The van is already nudging its way into the darkness before the gate is all the way up. Once inside, Madigan closes the door and switches on the lights. Back against the wall is a dark sedan, plain and inconspicuous. In the rear seat are four canvas duffels, all matching. Madigan brings them out and puts them on the floor.

  “Let’s see it,” Landry says.

  Madigan upends his bag and the bundles of money fall out.

  Williams whistles through his teeth. “Jesus Mary, Mother of God,” he whispers.

  Madigan is down on his knees. He’s fanning through the tied bundles, opening them up, counting out fifties, hundreds, twenties.

  “Separate them out by denomination,” he says. “Count up what you got, and then we’ll divide.”

  It takes a good twenty minutes. There’s a lot of money.

  “Four eighty-five,” Madigan finally concludes. “That’s one-twenty-one, two-fifty each.”

  “Shit, man, you do that math shit in your head?” Williams asks.

  Madigan smiles. He starts dividing up the money.

  A hundred and twenty grand. Better than he expected. Enough to give Sandià the whole seventy, thirty to the lawyers and have twenty left over. Maybe he’d go buy Cassie a car for her eighteenth. That would knock the shit out of all of them.

  “You as happy as me, man?” Fulton asks.

  “I’m happy,” Madigan says, and then he’s got his money bundled into his duffel. He’s over at the sedan, reaching in through the driver’s side door and retrieving his handgun from the glove box. He tucks it in the back of his pants and straightens his leather jacket. He looks down at his right shoe again. There sure is a hell of a lot of blood. It must have just come spraying up from below as those poor motherfuckers got blasted. Hell of a thing.

  “So you’re dumping the van,” Madigan tells Landry. “Take it a long way away. I’m serious, now. Drive it for sixty, seventy miles upstate. Find some parking garage, somewhere huge that has no security cameras. Just park it in there, wipe it all down, and walk away. Don’t stop on the way, don’t speed, don’t get pinched by the highway patrol, okay?”

  “I know, man. I know. Trust me. I’ve done this before, and I sure as hell mean to do it again.” Landry looks at Madigan like a scolded kid.

  “Good ’nough,” Madigan says.

  Fulton and Williams are standing by the front of the sedan.

  “Guns now, all of them,” Madigan says. “Over there by the wall. I’ll take care of their disposal.”

  The three other men comply, dropping their guns in a pile against the far wall.

  “Ready?” Madigan asks.

  “For some wild-ass party, yeah!” Fulton says.

  Madigan shakes his head. “You go easy, Zeppo,” he says. “Stupidest thing you could do right now is flash that money around the place.”

  Fulton laughs. “Think we can do without the dumb nicknames now. Don’t you?” he says, and there’s something in his eyes.

  Madigan says nothing.

  “I mean, hell, man, we’re all friends here now. Brothers in arms, partners in crime an’ all that shit.” He glances at Landry. “Me an’ Bobby ain’t strangers. We did some work together a little while back, and this guy over here,” he adds, indicating Williams, “sure wasn’t keeping his name a secret. Were you, Chuck?”

  Williams looks pissed. He shakes his head at Fulton and looks away. He knows Madigan is staring at him, but he can’t face him down. Doesn’t even try.

  “You are full of shit, Zeppo,” Madigan says. “I said what I said, and what I said I meant. Don’t fuck with me—”

  Fulton sneers. “You think I don’t know who you are?”

  Madigan’s eyes widen. This is not what he planned for, not what he expects, not what he needs. He is aware of the .44 in the back of his waistband.

  “Seriously? You think I don’t know about you . . . about who you are, your reputation?”

  “Shut the hell up, will you?” Williams says urgently.

  “Yeah, shut the hell up,” Landry echoes. “We’re done. The whole thing is done. Let’s get out of here right now.”

  Fulton stands his ground. He’s cock of the walk now. He stands straight, like someone jammed a stair rod up his ass.

  “You know who I am?” Madigan asks.

  “Sure as shit stinks, I know who you are,” Fulton replies. “You’re Vincent Mad—”

  Madigan would later marvel at his own speed. He has the .44 in his hand before he is even aware of it himself. The bullet hits Fulton in the stomach.

  Williams and Landry don’t move. The sudden noise, the sight of Fulton looking at his own stomach, the way he just goes on standing there smiling his condescending smile. And then the blood starts coming and he knows he’s in trouble, that it isn’t his imagination. He drops
the duffel full of money and clasps his hands to his gut, and he goes on standing there for a good ten seconds before he finally lets out a noise like Neeeuuuggghhh and drops to his knees. Fulton looks up at Madigan. Still the disbelief is there in his eyes. Madigan doesn’t say a word. Fulton’s eyes roll back, and then he falls sideways. His right foot is twitching.

  Williams starts hyperventilating. “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus. What the fuck. What the fuck . . .”

  Landry steps away from the front of the car. He looks down at Fulton—there on his side, still now, not a flicker of motion—and Landry says the only thing that he can think of in that moment which is, “I don’t know who the hell you are, and I sure as hell don’t wanna know.”

  Madigan looks at Williams. Williams slows down. He calms a little. He’s gripping the handles of the duffel like a lifeline to something. He’s breathing heavily.

  Madigan knows what to do. It comes together like a jigsaw puzzle. He walks to the wall and retrieves Fulton’s .38. He points it at Williams.

  “You know who I am?” Madigan asks him.

  Williams is shaking his head vigorously, but Madigan knows he’s lying. He knows they’re both lying. Fulton found out who he was and told both Williams and Landry, and now he has to deal with it.

  “You know Ben Franklin?” Madigan asks.

  “I don’t know anyone,” Williams says. “I don’t know you, and I don’t know any Franklin guy.”

  Madigan smiles. These guys really were dumber than dog crap.

  “Benjamin Franklin, the President of the United States . . . that Ben Franklin.”

  “Sure, yeah. Sure . . . Heard of him, yeah . . .” Landry says. He takes a step back. He’s clutching his duffel to his chest like it’s bulletproof.

  “Said something that makes a great deal of sense in this situation,” Madigan continues.

  “Yeah, okay . . . Okay, man,” Williams replies. “Ca—can we just get the hell out of here now? Fulton’s dead, okay? He was an asshole and he opened his dumbass mouth and now he’s dead. We’ll split up his share, you and me and Bobby here . . . No, forget that. You just take Fulton’s share, and that’ll be the end of that—”

  “You haven’t heard my Ben Franklin quote yet,” Madigan says. He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t understand why he feels so calm. He hefts the .38 in his hand. “He said that a secret between three people is only a secret if two of them are dead.”

  It takes a second before either Landry or Williams understands the significance of Madigan’s words.

  A second is too long.

  Madigan shoots Williams first, right through the heart, and he’s close enough for the force of impact to spin Williams right over the bumper of the car and onto the ground.

  Landry looks like he’s going for the wall.

  Madigan takes one step forward and shoots him in the face. Both of them are down. He checks vitals. There is nothing.

  He gathers up the four duffels, opens one up, takes a good three or four handfuls of notes and scatters them across the floor. He turns the bag out and empties it beside Fulton.

  Madigan wipes his prints off of the .44 and puts it in Williams’s hand. He cleans off the .38 and reaches down to put it beside Fulton.

  Fulton opens his eyes and looks back at Madigan.

  Madigan starts suddenly.

  Blood bubbles from Fulton’s lips as he tries to speak. Madigan stands straight. He pockets the .38. He cannot shoot the man again. A second shot would preclude any possibility of this being read the way he intends. It needs to be clean, simple, a closed case. Three people robbed one of Sandià’s drug houses, and those same three people had a go at each other in a storage unit near the subway. Three shots, three DBs, case closed.

  Madigan backs up the Econoline and opens the door. He sits sideways in the seat, now no more than three or four yards from where Fulton lies on the ground in an ever-widening pool of blood. The man’s leg twitches once more, a brief flurry of motion, and the side of his shoe draws an arc of blood out from the edge and across the concrete.

  Fulton tries to speak again, and blood bubbles grow and burst from his mouth.

  “It’s over, Larry,” Madigan says. “I ain’t takin’ you anywhere. You do understand that, right? You and me are just going to have to sit here until you die.”

  Fulton’s eyes tighten with whatever ravages of pain are coursing through his gut. Stomach wounds are the worst—the slowest, the most painful, the most difficult to repair.

  “You been a bad guy,” Madigan says. “Hell, what goes around comes around, eh? Seems to me that something like this is the only way it could end for you.”

  Madigan pauses, wonders if this will be the way for him as well. Sometime.

  Fulton is down on his right side. He tries to lift his left arm, but he has no strength. His fingers are trying to reach for something he cannot see, perhaps reaching out toward Madigan in a last, desperate attempt to provoke some slight sense of mercy.

  Madigan closes his eye and exhales. The adrenaline has gone. He is exhausted. He feels as if the edges of his mind have been frayed and weathered by some terrible storm.

  He feels the weight of the .38 in his pocket. He needs to get it into Fulton’s hand and get the fuck out of there. He cannot leave until Fulton is dead.

  Madigan stands. He surveys the scene around him—the bodies, the blood, the money, the Econoline. Devastation every which way he looks. Kind of like his life.

  He takes three steps and is down on his haunches beside Fulton, careful not to get any more blood on his shoes.

  “Just fucking die already, will you?” Madigan says. “Just die and go to hell where you belong, you piece of shit.”

  Madigan gets the next words that Fulton tries to utter. He can lip-read enough to see Fuck you amidst the blood.

  “Fuck you too, Larry,” Madigan says, and the temptation to just reach out and close his hand over Fulton’s nose and mouth and let him suffocate is very strong, but he cannot touch the man.

  Madigan waits.

  Larry Fulton’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and then he is gone—eyes wide, looking right back at Madigan, and the light behind them goes out.

  Madigan takes the .38 from his pocket, wipes it down, and puts it in Fulton’s right hand. He moves the hand slightly and lets it come to rest in half an inch of blood. The blood, still fluid, closes around the hand, and the scene is set.

  Madigan spends a good ten minutes wiping down every possible surface in the Econoline, and then he’s behind the wheel of the sedan. He manages to maneuver it out past the van and up to the door of the storage unit. He looks back at the scene. On his passenger seat are three duffels, over three hundred and sixty grand in cash. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He doesn’t need a Mandy anymore. He could use a Brooklyn Pilsner, a shot of Jack, a smoke. That would do him right now. The adrenaline has lit a fire in him, and it ain’t going out anytime soon.

  Eight minutes later Vincent Madigan is heading toward the Triborough and home. That’s when his cellphone goes off. That’s when he checks the number of the caller and feels his balls tighten.

  He hesitates, then pulls over, takes one more look at the phone, and answers it.

  “Detective Madigan . . .”

  6

  THE LIE

  “You are not the light of the world,” Angela said. She was his first wife, back when things were straight and clean, back when things were far closer to how he’d imagined they should be. She was beautiful and smart, and Madigan was handsome and charming and humorous. They were a great couple, at least for a while. And between them they made Cassie, Madigan’s first child, and anything that produced such a girl as Cassie couldn’t have been wrong.

  Cassie was the brightest, the best, the one that seemed to have inherited all his good and none of his bad. Cassie was everything to him. And though Madigan now saw Cassie infrequently, she seemed to be the one person in his life who recognized who he really was.

&n
bsp; Madigan could hear Angela’s voice anytime he chose. He just had to close his eyes and remember her face, and with her face came her voice, and with her voice came all the subsequent years of accusations and bullshit that seemed to have been part of both his marriages. At least at the end. After the fire had died.

  Angela soured the pitch, always and forever. She seemed to have adopted it as a crusade. “Maybe it’s my job to remind you what an asshole you are. Maybe it’s my task on this earth to keep Vincent Madigan apprised of the fact that the universe does not revolve around him and his desires.”

  One time, close to the end of the marriage, she had slapped his face. He raised his hand but didn’t slap her back. Then they made out like sixteen-year-olds, right there in the kitchen, right there on the cold Mexican ceramic tile floor. Aggressive, almost vindictive, like fucking for revenge.

  Angela Duggan knew what kind of man Vincent Madigan was. She married him regardless. She knew what kind of man would do the kind of things he did. Bad things. Dirty things. Dealing with the scum of the earth. The dealers and pimps and killers and psychos and the filth that floated up to the surface every once in a while. She knew that to deal with that kind of thing you had to be that kind of thing. At least a little of you. It had to be there in your soul. Only way you could survive that kind of toxic horror was to be related to it.

  And now she never missed an opportunity to remind him of who he was, of how little he meant.

  “Marcus Aurelius,” she said one time. “He hired a slave to follow him wherever he walked, and whenever anyone showed him respect or told him what a great guy he was, well, that slave had to lean forward and whisper, ‘You are just a man’ in his ear. Kept him grounded, Vincent; kept his feet on the same planet as the rest of us. You could do with some of that, you know? You could do with a little grounding.”

  And so she kept him grounded. You are not the light of the world, she said, and he tried so hard to believe her.