by R.J. Ellory
“You are such a wiseass.”
“Yeah, Vincent, I know, but this time I think I maybe did it right, wouldn’t you say?”
“You did good, Bernie. I have to give you that. You did good.”
“So we got a deal?”
Madigan nodded. “Yes, Bernie, we have a deal.”
Bernie raised his glass. “To absent friends,” he said. “God bless Larry Fulton and his crackhead buddies, dumber than fence posts but good in a fistfight.”
Madigan raised his glass too. By the time he’d set it down he’d already worked out what to do.
37
SLEEPING IN BLOOD CITY
Isabella Arias.
She sleeps upstairs.
I imagine that if I hold my breath, I could perhaps hear her breathing.
The thing I could not say, the thing I could not fathom, was how much she reminded me of Ivonne.
That moment on the hospital stairwell, again as she looked at me out on the landing . . . the way she saw right through me . . .
I loved Ivonne.
I worshipped her.
She worshipped me in return.
And then I killed it all, like I killed everything before, like I will just keep on killing and keep on killing . . .
Everything you touch turns to shit, Vincent.
Everything you say is a worthless lie.
You think I don’t see who you are, Vincent Madigan? You think I don’t see right through your heart to the small black shadow that you once called a soul?
And now here I am. Dead if I do and dead if I don’t. It’s a web—thinly constructed, delicate, fragile—and yet supposed to support the burden I am carrying.
Who am I kidding?
Myself, that’s who.
I think back to the moment in the bar. I could smell the shampoo from her hair, the soap from her skin. I can remember the way her eyes were red and swollen with grief, and how I felt when I looked down at this woman’s daughter in the hospital bed.
There is no way for me to understand how she feels, and yet I am trying. I am trying so hard.
Bernie is gone. Bernie has left me with the transcription of his conversation with Walsh. I am going to try and defend my life with this.
And if I do? Then what? What will I have? A job I can no longer do, two ex-wives, an ex-mistress, and four children who would struggle to recognize me in a lineup . . .
That’s what I’ll have.
Is this what my life has amounted to?
Jesus Christ.
And if I don’t? If it all goes wrong . . . more wrong than it is even now? Then what? Will I be dead, or in jail, or just wandering the wilderness with an ex-career to throw into the mix?
Shame there isn’t a book you can read on how this stuff works.
Shame I didn’t do it right from the start.
Hindsight: the cruelest and most astute adviser.
38
MOTHER OF EARTH
“You’re sure that guy won’t tell anyone that he saw me here?” Isabella asked.
She sat across from Madigan in the kitchen, the same table where Madigan and Bernie Tomczak had drunk and talked the previous night. It was early, a little after seven, and Isabella had made eggs for them both. She ate quickly, and ate everything in front of her. Madigan ate slowly, struggled after the third mouthful.
“He won’t say anything,” Madigan assured her.
She shook her head. In her eyes was confusion, despair, most everything that Madigan himself had felt the night before. He had slept for an hour, perhaps two, and had risen awkwardly, everything aching.
“You’re going to have to decide to trust me,” he said.
Isabella was silent for a while. She ate some more. She sipped her coffee. “This morning I woke up,” she said, “and I was here alone with you.”
Madigan frowned. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know . . . more trouble? That you lied to me? That you were working for Barrantes? In a way I was surprised to even wake up in the first place.”
Madigan remembered that thought: Surprised when I wake up every morning and find out someone hasn’t killed me.
“So you’re alive, and there’s no one else here. Like I said, you get to the point where you think that you can trust me, then I’ll be ready to hear what you have to say.”
“I’ll need to go out,” she replied, her tone dismissive of his statement. “I’ll need clean clothes.”
“I can get whatever you need. Tell me what you want, the sizes, and I will get them for you.”
“And you have almost no food here. Do you actually live here at all?”
“I live here, yes.”
“How long have you been here?”
Madigan shrugged. He tried to remember. He had moved in a month or two after his divorce from Catherine finalized.
“Two years maybe, something like that.”
“Looks like you’ve been here two weeks.”
“I’ll get groceries as well.”
“And what am I supposed to do all day?”
“Watch TV. Sleep. Get some rest, for Christ’s sake. Do whatever you want, but you can’t leave the house.”
She didn’t reply.
“I have to go to work,” Madigan said. “And when I get back you’re going to need to start talking. I need to know why your sister was killed, why Sandià had your daughter in that house—” He was cut midsentence by the change in her expression. “What?”
“Barrantes had my sister killed. She saw something, and he found out and he had her killed.”
“Saw what?”
“She saw him kill a man.”
Madigan’s eyes widened. Sandià never did his own work. This was hard to believe, but Madigan believed it. It must have been very personal, indeed.
“Maribel had a lover. He was a good man. At least in his heart he was a good man. But he did some things, and he made some mistakes, and he crossed Barrantes, and Barrantes killed him.”
“You know his name . . . Maribel’s lover?”
“Yes.”
“And Maribel told you that she saw Barrantes kill him?”
“She didn’t need to tell me.”
Madigan frowned. “I don’t understand—”
“I was there too. I was there when he killed this man. We were both in the house, but Barrantes didn’t know it. And then he found out later that we were there, and when he found Maribel he killed her and now he is looking for me . . .”
“What the hell? You saw Barrantes kill a man? You actually saw him kill someone with his own hands?”
“I saw Dario Barrantes put a screwdriver through a man’s eye and kill him.”
“When? And where did this happen?”
“It was a few days before Maribel was killed. We were both at her lover’s house up on East 115th. Barrantes came there with two other men, and they held him while Barrantes killed him.”
“And his name? Who was this man Barrantes killed?”
“His name was David . . . David Valderas.”
“And Melissa—”
“Melissa was at school, and then after these men left I went to the school and took her, and we stayed with Maribel, and she was sure that Barrantes would never find out that we saw this thing happen.”
“So how did he know?”
“I do not know how he found out, but then Maribel was killed and we couldn’t stay in her apartment, and so we had to get out. We went back to my apartment for some things, but they came for us. Barrantes’s people were hiding inside, and then when we went in they held us both . . .”
She stopped talking. Color rose in her face, her eyes welled with tears. She inhaled deeply, held her breath, and then she exhaled. Madigan opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her hand and he fell silent.
“And if you are working for Barrantes, then you know all that you need to know and you can kill me now. I am terrified. I am more terrified than I have ever been, but I will willingly give you my lif
e if you do not harm my daughter further . . .”
Madigan reached out and took her hand. She withdrew it swiftly.
“If I worked for Barrantes, then I would already have known why he wanted you. I would already know why your sister was murdered. I would already know why he had your daughter. And you would already be dead. I do not work for Barrantes. I know him, but I do not work for him. Go on. Tell me what happened.”
Isabella looked away. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Every muscle, every nerve, every sinew was wrenched to its limit. She looked as if she would just burst at the seams.
“Melissa struggled free and locked herself in the bathroom. I could hear her screaming. They went after her, two of them, and I got away from the third one, the one who was holding me, and I went to help her. They managed to get her out, and then they took both of us down into the street, and that’s when I ran . . .”
Tears dropped from her jaw line onto her T-shirt. She gripped the edge of the table as if to prevent herself from losing balance.
“I ran,” she said. “I r-ran away . . . I left her be-behind . . .”
Madigan reached out and touched her shoulder. She rose from the chair, Madigan followed suit, and he held her for a moment. She was rigid, unyielding, and then she seemed to fold and bend, and it took everything he possessed to keep her from falling to her knees.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You had no choice . . . I don’t see what else you could have done . . .”
“I could have saved my daughter,” he heard her say. “I could have stopped them taking my daughter . . .”
“But it was you they wanted. If you had stayed they would have killed you, and then they would have killed Melissa. I know Sandià. I know he would have done this, and then you would have both been dead. Right now you’re alive. He doesn’t know where you are, and he has to make sure Melissa stays alive, as she is his insurance against you saying anything to the police . . .”
Isabella pulled away from Madigan and looked up at him. She looked just as she had the previous night, as if her entire body was filled with grief, and it was simply finding any way it could to release the pressure of this burden.
“So by running away you have kept her alive . . . And now we can do something. Now we can get her back and we can finish Sandià . . .”
“Finish Sandià? You cannot finish a man like Sandià. Sandià will go on forever, and when he is finished there will be someone else to take his place.”
Madigan was shaking his head. “He can be brought down, Isabella. Even a man like Sandià can be brought down.”
“You really don’t work for him, do you?”
“No,” Madigan said. “I don’t work for him. I work for myself now, and I am also going to work for you.”
“He has hurt you as well?” she asked. “Barrantes has done something against you?”
Madigan didn’t speak for a moment, and then he stepped back and held her by the shoulders. “I have to go now,” he said. “I am going to be gone all day. If you need me you call my cellphone from the landline, okay? But do not leave the house, and if anyone comes here you do not open the door. You understand me?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you want me to get you some clothes?”
“Yes, if you can. Just a few things.”
“Write them down for me,” he said. “I’ll get them, and I’ll get some more food as well.”
Madigan gave her a pen and paper. She wrote down what she needed. Underwear, some jeans, T-shirts, another pair of shoes.
“Anything will do,” she said.
“Okay.”
Madigan put on his jacket. “Under the bath is a .22-caliber revolver. It’s in a cardboard box. If Barrantes’s people come here . . . if they have somehow figured out where you are, do everything you can to get away. Go out the back and down the alley to the street. Take the gun with you. If they get in here or they come after you and you know they are going to kill you, then just kill as many of them as you can before they do.”
Isabella said nothing. There was nothing she could say.
She followed him to the front door, and as he opened it to step out she looked at him with a different light in her eyes.
“I told you I was not going to say thank you . . .” Her voice faded. “I cannot trust you. You understand that?”
“Be safe,” Madigan replied, and then he stepped out and closed the door firmly behind him.
39
BLACK HOLE
Madigan did not think as he drove. He did not want to think.
This was a mess. An unholy nightmare of a mess. He’d believed it complicated—the situation he was in—but this? This was beyond complicated.
Arriving at the precinct he went on up to his office. He took an evidence bag from his desk drawer, wiped down his coffee cup, put it in the bag, and closed it up. He went back down to Evidence, nodded at the attending, went in back, looked up the Tomczak .22, and stuck it in the back waistband of his pants. He replaced the Tomczak bag with his own, and then left.
Now, irrespective of what Walsh might say or do, the fact remained that he had agreed to remove something from Evidence, that agreement was on record with Bernie Tomczak, and that precise something was now missing.
In his office, Madigan stripped down the .22, dropped the pieces into a Subway bag, folded it up tight, and put it in his inside jacket pocket. He would find a street-side trash can, and within a couple of hours that .22 would be lost somewhere amid the collected mass of garbage en route to the municipal dump.
Next item on the agenda was to find out all he could about this Valderas murder. East 115th. At least it was in the Yard. The case should have run out of here, the 167th, and that meant the files wouldn’t be too hard to find.
Madigan had been seated for no more than five minutes before Walsh appeared in the doorway.
“Vincent,” he said. “I wondered if you had a few minutes.”
Madigan looked up at Walsh, frowned, leaned back in his chair. “What’s up?”
Walsh seemed hesitant. He had his hand on the edge of the door. “Can I close this?” he asked.
Madigan knew what was coming. “Sure,” he said, “go ahead.”
Walsh closed the door slowly and quietly, almost as if he wanted no one to know he was doing it. He paused once more, and then he approached Madigan’s desk and sat down. He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and said, “I have a situation, Vincent, and it is not a situation I have . . .” He shook his head, looked away toward the window.
“The case you’re working, right?” Madigan asked.
Walsh nodded.
“The three dead guys in the storage unit,” Walsh said. “The one . . . Larry Fulton . . . he had a friend, someone he knew, a guy called Richard Moran. You know him?”
Madigan thought for a moment. “Can’t say I do.” He could feel the tension between them. Madigan did not know exactly how much Walsh knew, and Walsh did not know that Bernie Tomczak had already spoken with Madigan.
“No mind,” Walsh said. “Anyway, this guy Moran was a friend of Fulton’s, and I went to see Moran. Moran told me something. He told me that the fourth man was a cop—”
“Bryant told me,” Madigan interjected. “You really believe that?”
“Hell, Vincent, I don’t know what to believe . . .”
Madigan didn’t know where this was going. Walsh looked really distressed.
“I told this guy Moran that I would help him out with something if he gave me the information. Now I don’t know whether the information he gave me was correct . . .”
“About the fourth man being a cop?”
“Right.”
“So what makes you think it’s not true?” Madigan asked.
Walsh shook his head. “That comes later. Something else happened. I made this agreement with Moran that I would help him out on a possession bust if he told me what he knew. He told me, and so I have to hold up my end of the de
al otherwise any case I might build comes apart because Moran won’t confirm it. Anyway, I go and see Moran’s arresting officer on this possession thing. His name is Benedict. He’s a uniform at the 158th. He tells me that he can fix this thing about Moran if I help him with something else. He has an OIS review. He’s moved it twice, wants it moved again. So now I’m having to agree to that to get Moran’s bust lifted . . .”
“But you said that this information from Moran was not good, right? If the info he gave you was bullshit then you don’t have to get the bust lifted.”
“Sure, sure . . . But I don’t know if it’s good or not, and that’s not the worst of it.”
“There’s more?” Madigan asked, feigning surprise.
“There is,” Walsh replied.
There was silence between them.
“So?” Madigan asked.
“What we say here stays here, right?” Walsh asked.
Madigan frowned. “What? You have to ask me that?”
“Okay, okay . . . Christ, Vincent, this is one hell of a mess. I’ve never been in a situation like this before . . .”
“So tell me what happened.”
“You know a guy called Bernie Tomczak?”
“Yes,” Madigan replied, knowing that his name was all over Bernie’s yellow sheet. If he denied knowing Bernie he could so easily be caught out.
“I went to see him,” Walsh said. “Moran gave me his name. Bernie Tomczak was a buddy of Fulton’s too, and I tracked him down in some bar. I told him the whole story, and then he told me he wanted to make a deal.”
“He wanted a bust lifted as well?” Madigan asked.
“Not specifically, no,” Walsh replied. “He wanted me to get a weapon out of evidence, a .22 that his brother was busted for.”
Madigan tried to look confused. “But you haven’t done this, right? You haven’t taken the .22 out of evidence. What’s the problem?”
“He recorded the conversation.”
Madigan paused. He looked at Walsh. The expression on the man’s face was priceless. “He did what?”
“He recorded the conversation, Vincent . . . recorded everything I said. Everything about Fulton, about Moran, me making an agreement with him . . . And he denied that the fourth man was a cop. He categorically denied it, said that Fulton would never work with a cop.”
