A Dark and Broken Heart

by R.J. Ellory

  Moments like this—driving back toward the Sandià house, summoned to the very scene of the crime he had just committed, he wondered if this was the time they’d get him.

  Madigan stopped en route to Louis Cuvillier Park. He wiped down his shoes as best he could, found a store, bought a new pair, and once back at the car he bagged the blood-stained ones and buried the bag beneath the driver’s seat. The sooner he had a moment to dispose of them properly, the better. He drove on, and parked a block away from the park. He didn’t want any questions as to why he wasn’t driving a precinct vehicle. He put the money in the trunk, checked it was locked, walked ten yards, went back, and checked it again. He felt nauseous. Now he wanted something, anything to settle his nerves. He had nothing. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was better to be on edge, feet hanging over the precipice. Needed to be on his toes, sharp as a paper cut. Needed to be seeing three ways simultaneously, backward as well.

  The house was lit up like the Fourth of July. Red and white flashes, yellow crime scene tape, the hum and buzz and crackle of a dozen radios from a dozen cars, a crowd of spectators already gathering along the sidewalk, that insolent screw-you attitude so evident in their eyes as a uniform tried to herd them back away from the road.

  Madigan had his wallet out, flipped his badge, and tucked it into his breast pocket. He lifted the tape and went under, was met by Charlie Harris and Ron Callow from Madigan’s own unit, Robbery-Homicide, 167th Precinct.

  “Got a whirlwind of mystery meat up and down the stairwell,” Callow said.

  Madigan smiled. “And good morning to you, my friend. Nice weather we’re having.”

  “Jeez, Vincent, you look wiped out, man,” Harris commented. “You didn’t sleep so good, huh?”

  “The schedule is the schedule, my friend,” Madigan replied. “How many we got?”

  “Four,” Callow said, “and man, have they let themselves go.”

  “You are such a wiseass,” Madigan replied.

  “Looks like a hit-and-run. Figure they were bringing in some dope maybe, some cash perhaps, but someone was out back and came in through the upper window. Usual story, though,” he added, glancing up and around at the crowd of onlookers across the street, the facing apartment buildings. “No one saw a damned thing. Couple of folks said it sounded like a firework display, but beyond that nothing. This is business. No one’s gonna get involved.”

  “This is one of Sandià’s places, right?” Madigan asked.

  “Sure is,” Harris said. “He’s gonna have a hard-on to get whoever. You know?”

  “He’ll find ’em before we do,” Callow interjected. “We’ll turn up a couple of stiffs without their balls and their eyes in a Dumpster someplace before the week is out. Whaddya wanna bet?”

  “Think you’re right,” Madigan said, and started up toward the house.

  Once inside, he marveled at his own handiwork. Looked like an incendiary device in an abattoir. He tried his best not to tread the stuff around, but there was barely anywhere to stand that didn’t have some part of someone all over it.

  He was surprised at how little he felt. He remembered the shock, the noise, the adrenaline, the panic, the sheer maelstrom of gunfire that had erupted here such a short while before. And he—Madigan—had been right in the middle of it. Perhaps he was insensate. Perhaps he had seen this kind of thing so many times before that he had grown numb to it. Perhaps it was simply because he cared nothing for these people. What had happened here went with the territory. Occupational hazards. Play with fireworks, you’re gonna get burned sometime or another.

  Madigan stood amid the madness and took a deep breath. He believed he could smell his own sweat and adrenaline in the air.

  He thought of Fulton, Landry, and Williams—dead like Elvis back in the storage unit. Someone would find them sooner or later, and then everything would fall neatly into place.

  Callow was beside him then. “Had Al on the radio. He wants you to do this one.”

  “You are kidding me?” Madigan replied. “You guys have a helluva lot less traffic than me.”

  Callow smiled. “Al says what he says, Vincent. He wants you on this one. Says you know the Sandià business better than anyone.”

  Madigan knew there was no point arguing. Squad Sergeant Alvin Bryant, three years from retiring, had already bought the boat and the Winnebago, and he ran Robbery-Homicide like a prison yard. You ate when you ate, you slept when you slept, you worked the assigned cases, no leeway left or right. Bryant was a rock, an anchor for everyone, and he gave a damn about his people. However, he was a realist, a man of method, and he ran the 167th on the understanding that his word was law.

  Madigan signed deeply.

  “You love it, man; you know you do,” Callow said sarcastically.

  “Whatever,” Madigan replied resignedly. “Look, help me out on this one, would you? At least do the prelims with me. You, me, and Harris could get this wrapped in an hour.”

  Callow hesitated. “We got our own messes to deal with—”

  “Just the preliminaries,” Madigan interjected. “Then I’ll take it from there.”

  Callow looked at Harris. “Hey, Charlie . . . you wanna help Madigan with the prelims?”

  Harris shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

  “An hour,” Callow said. “No more.”

  “I owe you,” Madigan said.

  Crime Scene descended en masse. Four bodies, at least what was left of them, and Madigan, Harris, and Callow had a hard time maneuvering their way up the stairwell to the second floor.

  “Looks like the freakin’ Green Berets came in through the window here,” Harris said, and stooped to pick up pencil-sized splinters of frame that were scattered across the carpet for four or five feet either way.

  “So I figure we got these four clowns coming in downstairs,” Callow said. “They’re bringing home the bacon—cash maybe, more likely the dope—and out here on the roof we got whoever is waiting for them.” He took a moment to lean out through the aperture and look down toward the rear yard.

  “You know this place?” he asked Madigan.

  “It’s Sandià’s. I know that much. Beyond that—” He shook his head.

  Harris was up the second short stairwell—no more than four or five steps—and he stood there for a moment.

  “You hear that?” he asked.

  Madigan frowned.

  Harris leaned over the banister and looked down at the Crime Scene guys taking pictures of bullet holes and blood spatter.

  “Hey . . . quiet down a minute!”

  It was eerily quiet. Suddenly. Madigan believed he could hear his own heart, the blood in his temples, the sweat breaking free from his hairline and starting down his forehead. He knew he was imagining it.

  Callow opened his mouth to speak, and then he heard something too.

  Like something scratching through the wall.

  “Jesus,” he said through his teeth. He had his gun out.

  Madigan’s heart skipped a beat or two. He felt something tighten up in his chest, his lower gut.

  He heard it then. A scraping sound. What the fu—

  Someone in the other room. Someone or something in the room to their left.

  Harris was up the well and over on the other side of the door.

  Callow followed suit.

  Madigan hesitated, and then he moved after them and stood right there with his back against the banister, his gun in his hand, his eye on the handle of the door.

  He raised his foot.

  Someone was in there. He knew it. Someone was in there and had seen what had happened, and he was going to go right through that door, Callow and Harris on his heels, and whoever was in there was going to get the surprise of their lives.

  Madigan hoped like hell that they were armed. Maybe backed up in the corner, gun in their hand, anything in their hand that could pass for a gun, and he could shoot them without hesitation. Shoot them right where they crouched, and that would be that. Ther
e would be an internal, IA would be all over it, Officer-Involved Shooting would tie him up in paperwork for a week of Sundays, but it would be done. Bottom line is that there’d be no living witness, no one to tell everyone that the lead investigator had in fact been the perpetrator.

  Madigan held his breath. He let fly with the sole of his shoe and the door gave way like cardboard.

  He rolled sideways as he went through the doorway. Gun in his hand, elbow hitting the ground with a sickening thud, but he didn’t feel a damned thing—maybe the bennies, maybe the adrenaline. It didn’t matter. He felt nothing. Saw everything. Gun up ahead of him, finger on the trigger, ready to just let fly with a barrage and down whoever was in there.

  But they were down already.

  Down and bleeding. Clutching the stomach, scarlet-soaked T-shirt, eyes tight shut, hair in pigtails, a little yellow bow at each end, and blood on the floor, on the walls, and skid marks where she’d tried to get up and failed . . . Whatever strength she might have possessed was fading fast. Madigan could see it in the way she looked at him. Her head against the carpet, and blood there too, so much blood . . .

  She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Just a breath. An exhalation.

  She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and the wound in her stomach was the size of a man’s fist.

  Madigan wondered whose bullet she’d taken—his or Landry’s or Williams’s or Fulton’s. To his right were the holes. Nothing more than studs and drywall between the upper landing and the girl. How many bullets had come through? Ten, twelve, twenty, fifty?

  She’d taken one. Taken one right in the gut. Worst kind of shot. Slow bleed-out, slim chance of making it, a great deal of pain while it happened.

  “Jesus Mary, Mother of God,” Madigan heard someone say, and then Harris was out on the landing, screaming, “Medic! Medic! Get a fucking medic up here!” at the top of his voice.

  For some reason Madigan fell to his knees. His gun slipped from his hand, and with that same hand he reached out toward the little girl. He saw nothing but fear and sadness in her eyes, and it went right through him like a knife.

  7

  LUPITA SCREAMS

  They’re taking her to Harlem Hospital up on West 136th.

  Harris says she will die.

  “She don’t weigh more than seventy pounds,” he says. “Half her blood is on the floor.” He shakes his head. “She ain’t gonna make it.”

  I watch as the ambulance peels away, lights flashing, siren hollering, and I try and convince myself that Landry shot her. Or Williams. Or Fulton. But not me. It couldn’t have been me.

  It feels like something is coming apart inside me. The seams are weak. I knew that already, but now it feels like maybe there’s no seams at all.

  Who was she? What the hell was some little kid doing in one of Sandià’s drug houses? What the hell was she doing there? She couldn’t have seen anything. Not a prayer. Not through the wall, however thin that wall might have been. And hell, even if she did see something, it doesn’t matter a damn now because she’s gonna die anyway. That’s what Harris thinks. Harris says she doesn’t have a hope in hell. I wish her dead. Right now, I wish her dead. And then I feel bad for thinking such things . . .

  No, this shit is karmic. It doesn’t have anything to do with me. I am not responsible for this. Shit like this happens every day in every way imaginable, and it doesn’t just happen here. It happens all over the world. People die. Kids die too. Little kids. Littler than this girl. And they die in worse ways, and that’s just the nature of things, and maybe there’s predestination in all of this, and it was just her day to die . . . and if she hadn’t been in Sandià’s house then she would have been someplace else, and she would have died some other way . . .

  This is the way life works. This is just the way of things.

  I know it. I believe it. I have to believe it.

  The siren disappears. I wonder if she’ll be dead by the time she reaches West 136th. I think of the medics, the furious activity in the back of that ambulance as they put in lines and saline and glucose and call ahead for blood, and they’ve got an oxygen mask clamped over her face and they’re telling her to breathe, breathe, breathe goddammit!

  And I wonder whose daughter she is, and if her mother is someplace out there and knows already that something bad has happened.

  This is collateral damage.

  That’s all it is.

  Nothing more nor less than that.

  I’ll feel better after a couple of Quaaludes.

  8

  COOL DRINK OF WATER

  After the ambulance left, Harris and Callow went too. Madigan didn’t see them leave. They were there, and then they were gone.

  He went back in the house, up to the room where the girl had been found, and he crouched on the floor and looked out onto the landing through the holes in the drywall. He could see the Crime Scene johnnies doing their thing and he knew that he had to get some ’ludes and a drink before his heart exploded with the tension.

  This thing was screwed. This was a seriously screwed thing.

  Half a block away there was a stolen car with three hundred and sixty grand in the trunk. Money that had come from this very house. Money that had come from four dead guys who were still on the stairwell. And now there was a dead kid too. Mostly dead, at least.

  Jesus Christ.

  He had to keep it together. He could keep it together. This was just another job, another day, and he’d dealt with this kind of thing before. Many times before. He was no stranger to this business.

  Madigan stood up. He felt light-headed. He breathed deeply, and then he turned back toward the door. As he did so he looked down at the floor, and there he saw a vague pattern in the nap of the carpet. The outline of the little girl’s head and shoulder. Blood had pooled around her and soaked into the carpet, and it was unmistakable. Like she was still lying there. He started to lose his balance. He put his hand against the wall and steadied himself.

  He took another deep breath, but all he could taste was that coppery ghost of blood in the back of his throat. Like he was breathing her inside him.

  He retched dryly, and he knew he had to get out. He went out to the landing, but the stairwell was crowded with people. They had stretchers, gurneys down below in the hallway, and they were starting the process of taking the dead guys out to the meat wagon. To Madigan’s right was the window, shattered glass all across the floor, most of the wooden framework in pieces on the floor, but he could see the roof out there. He stepped across and put his hand on the wall. Carefully, doing everything he could not to lose his balance, he lifted his foot over the sill and lowered it to the roof below. Within a minute he was out there, walked right to the edge and looked down into the rear yard. It seemed like minutes since he had crouched right there with Landry, Fulton, and Williams. Seemed like minutes, and yet seemed like an eternity. Everything was the same, yet everything felt different. There was no easy way to describe how he was feeling, and thus he did not try. He jumped to the yard and walked down the alleyway. He was out in front of the house and looking up at it from the sidewalk when the first body came out.

  He knew the guy. Couldn’t remember his name, but knew his face. All these guys were related anyway. Cousins of cousins of cousins. And he’d chosen to spend his life among these people? What did that make him? And how many times had he thought to get out? One last job, one big job, and he’d be gone. But it was a drug. It was an addiction. He could no more get away from this than these gangbangers could stop doing their own coke. This was also the nature of things, and Madigan knew—better than anything—that you didn’t fight nature.

  He decided to head back over to the 167th and write up the prelims. Bryant would be all over it otherwise, insistent, matter-of-fact, demanding that Madigan apply himself to it relentlessly. Internal Affairs was in the shop, headed up by some guy called Duncan Walsh. Always made the atmosphere tense. Madigan didn’t know Walsh from Adam,
but these guys were all the same, trying their damnedest to short-circuit the hard work to a gold shield. Pedantic, officious in the main, inflated egos, admiring of their own importance as they went about the business of policing the police.

  Hell, he had enough going on without having to investigate four murders of his own doing. Ironic. Really freaking ironic. Maybe even karmic.

  Madigan didn’t have time to drive back to the Bronx and dump the money. And he would have to park the car a good ways from the precinct. Last thing he needed was some eagle-eyed traffic cop running the plate and impounding it. And it wouldn’t be smart to leave the cash in the car, regardless of where he parked it. The money would have to go with him, right into the precinct house, right into his locker. Safest place for it. More irony. His life seemed to be one irony after another.

  Six blocks from the southeast corner of Louis Cuvillier Park, Madigan parked some ways down toward the corner of Third and 112th. He walked back past the school and took a left, went up the front steps and through reception. He barely had time to get the duffel into his locker before Bryant was behind him.

  “So?” was Bryant’s opening question. He started walking, took the stairs to the second floor, Madigan following him.

  “Four dead, and a little girl wounded. I think she might be dead already.”

  Bryant shook his head. “She’s alive, Vincent. She’s in some deep trouble, but she’s alive, thank Christ. Apparently she crunched herself up, knees to her chest kinda thing, and that slowed the blood loss. One very lucky little girl.”

  “We have an ID?” Madigan asked, the only question he could think of in the heat of the moment. He felt the rush. He felt the punch in his lower gut. The little girl was alive. The little girl might have seen something. More important, she might have seen someone.

  Madigan tried to breathe deeply without making it obvious. His heart was a clenched fist. There were some downers in the bottom of his desk. He needed one. One would be enough to just smooth out the universe and get the world on an even keel.