A Dark and Broken Heart

by R.J. Ellory

“So what happened with the watermelon?”

  Isabella smiled ruefully. “It all sounds so stupid now. So meaningless. Jesus Christ, these people are animals . . . When it comes down to it, these people are little more than fucking animals.”

  “What happened?” Madigan prompted.

  “The war had gone on. Barrantes killed Angel’s people, Angel killed Barrantes’s people. They fought over blocks, streets, alleyways. They were both running dealers, hookers, selling guns, whatever people wanted. It went on for two, three years. I don’t know how many people ended up dead, but it was a lot.”

  “I heard about it,” Madigan said. “I was over in the Twelfth until July of ninety-four, and then I moved to Manhattan Gangs. I was a good ways from East Harlem, but I heard about it.”

  “Nineteen ninety-four,” Isabella went on, “and things just became insane. People were frightened to leave their houses. Torresola and Barrantes were selling their shit everywhere. Even the dealers were fighting between themselves, fighting over who got to supply who with what. The police could do literally nothing. Barrantes had one half of the neighborhood, Torresola the other. Finally it came to a head. They sent envoys. They arranged a meeting, a dinner, and Angelo Torresola and Dario Barrantes were going to resolve their differences, agree on their territories, stop the war. That was the plan.”

  “But it didn’t work out that way, right?”

  “No, and it didn’t work out that way because they were as bad as one another. It was a setup. Barrantes was going to kill Torresola. Torresola was going to kill Barrantes. It was obvious. Why they even bothered pretending, who knows? But they came together, and they talked, and they went back and forth and didn’t resolve anything. They got to the end of the meal, and there they were, nothing had changed, and Torresola sends for the waiter to bring watermelon. He wants watermelon to cleanse his palate. The waiter is paid off, and this request is his signal to call Torresola’s people. It means that Barrantes is going to die, that Torresola’s people will come and shoot Barrantes right there in the restaurant, and then they will begin the operation to clean up East Harlem. You work for Torresola or you die, it was that simple. But Barrantes had his own arrangements, and he had his own people, and they already had the waiter bought off. The call was never made. No one came. Torresola and Barrantes went their separate ways. Barrantes could have killed Torresola right there in the restaurant, but he wanted nothing to do with it directly. He didn’t want to be implicated directly in the death of Angel Torresola, and he knew that if Torresola died right there that evening then his people would make him a martyr and just keep fighting.”

  “So he killed the son, right?”

  “Barrantes knew about Eloisa. He knew she had changed her name. He had been there in the territory all the time that Angel had been in jail. He knew that Torresola wanted the boy back, but didn’t know where he was. So you know what he did?”

  “I heard what he did.”

  “You heard the truth?”

  “That he cut out the boy’s heart and put it inside a watermelon.”

  “And you believe he did that?”

  Madigan was silent.

  “The boy was thirteen, no more than that. Barrantes had his people take him. They cut his throat. They opened up his chest and they took his heart out. Then they cut a watermelon in half. They took out all the seeds, all the pulp, and there was enough room to put the boy’s heart inside it, and then they closed it up and tied it together with a ribbon, and then they sent it over to Angelo Torresola with their love. There was even a message, like with a gift, you know? ‘I found your son,’ the message said. ‘Have a great reunion.’”

  Madigan looked at Isabella Arias. Her eyes were wide, full of disbelief, full of horror, and yet she had known of this event for nearly twenty years. The best part of two decades had not assuaged the effect it had created on her.

  “Dario Barrantes sent Angel Torresola the boy’s heart inside a watermelon. Dominic Campos, thirteen years old . . . dead before his life had even begun, and all because of the sins of a father he didn’t even know. This is our people. This is where we come from, you see?”

  Madigan reached forward and took her hand. “Not everyone,” he said.

  Isabella withdrew. “Everyone,” she said. “David Valderas is dead. Maribel is dead. My only child is shot and wounded. And now . . . now I am hiding and terrified for my life, terrified that they will find me, that they will take Melissa, that I will be dead or she will be dead and we will never see each other again.”

  “I told you before,” Madigan interjected. “I am not going to let that happen.”

  “You cannot control this, Vincent. You are just one man. One man cannot make Barrantes disappear. Torresola had an entire army, and Barrantes just crushed him. After Dominic’s death Torresola was ruined. Eloisa found him. She knew her son was dead because of him. She killed Angel, and then she killed herself. Left her children behind with the new husband. Lives destroyed. All of it smashed to pieces because of the vanity and greed and stupidity of two men. And one of them is still alive, and the law cannot touch him. We cannot defend ourselves against him, and he keeps selling drugs and guns and putting teenagers out on the streets to do his dirty work, and no one can do anything . . .”

  “I can,” Madigan said, and he felt something rushing up in his chest, a feeling like . . . like a burning heat coming up from his stomach. For a moment he strained to breathe, and then the sensation passed and he saw everything with a clear and precise view.

  “I can do something about it,” he said, and he rose from the chair and walked to the window. He edged the blinds apart and looked out into the street. He did not want to look at Isabella Arias. He did not want her to look into his eyes, to look behind his eyes, and see him for what he was. He had been with Barrantes. He was no better than the people of whom she spoke. He may as well have cut out Dominic Campos’s heart and delivered it to Angelo Torresola himself. The money, the drugs, the lying, the killing, the deception, the betrayals, forever playing one side against the other, forever saying one thing and meaning something else entirely. The blood was on his hands too. The same blood as Torresola and Barrantes. East Harlem, the Yard, the territories—call it whatever—was controlled by people like this because of people like Madigan.

  But he did not feel guilty. He did not feel ashamed. He felt that there was something he needed to do, and if in doing it he was killed, then so be it. That would be his own justice for wrongdoing. And if he survived? If he made it through the other side, then he would have to tell Isabella Arias what really happened in that house near Louis Cuvillier Park, and why her daughter was nearly killed. And he would have to accept her judgment, her retribution, and in doing so he would be at last able to wash his hands of these things and walk away. Or not. Maybe that would be the end of him. Perhaps she would take revenge against him just as Eloisa had taken revenge against Angelo Torresola. If that was the case, then so be it.

  This was not vengeance against Dario Barrantes. This was an acceptance of culpability for all he himself had done, and a last-ditch attempt to become a human being again.

  “Vincent?”

  He turned back toward Isabella Arias.

  “I don’t want to die,” she said, “and I don’t want Melissa to die, and I don’t want you to die either.”

  Madigan closed his eyes.

  He didn’t say a word.

  He hardly dared breathe.

  54

  FROM TEMPTATION TO YOU

  Madigan got Walsh’s cellphone number from the desk and called him.

  “I need to meet you,” Madigan told him. “But not in the precinct. I need to meet you outside somewhere.”

  Immediately Madigan sensed Walsh’s anxiety.

  “There’s a problem, isn’t there?” Walsh said.

  “Yes, I think so,” Madigan replied, “But not what you think.”

  “To do with me . . . to do with what happened and—”

  “No,”
Madigan interjected. “Not to do with that. But I need your help with something. I just need you to come and meet me.”

  Walsh hesitated.

  “You owe me,” Madigan said.

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing, Walsh . . . You fucking owe me—”

  “Okay . . . where?”

  “Corner of 161st and Gerard, right near Yankee Stadium, there’s a diner called Subs and Salads. Meet me there in a half hour.”

  “Okay.”

  Walsh hung up.

  Madigan drove to Yankee Stadium. He waited across the street from the diner until Walsh arrived. Madigan crossed the street and joined him as he went in through the door.

  “What’s going on, Vincent?” Walsh started.

  Madigan shook his head. “Let’s sit down.”

  They took a booth at the rear, ordered coffee. Once the waitress had gone again, Madigan leaned forward and started talking in hushed tones.

  “I think I have your man,” he said.

  “My man?”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “What do you mean, my man?”

  “The fourth man . . . the DBs in the storage unit, the Sandià robbery.”

  “But this ain’t my case,” Walsh said. “Bryant took it off me.”

  Madigan smiled wryly. “Of course he did.”

  “What’s the supposed to mean?”

  “If your man was a cop . . . Just say that the fourth man was a cop, then it would be your case again, right?”

  “Well, sure . . .”

  “So I think we’re back to the fact that it’s a cop.”

  Walsh’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  “Serious as it gets.”

  “And what did you mean when you said that thing about Bryant taking the case off of me?”

  “Because I know who the fourth man is.” Madigan took a napkin, wrote a name on it, slid it across the table to Walsh.

  Walsh smiled, started laughing. It was nothing more than a nervous reaction.

  Madigan’s expression didn’t shift an inch.

  “What the hell are you talking about? You cannot be—”

  “What? What can’t I be? Serious? Real? Jesus, Walsh, it makes so much sense. Every step of the way this investigation has been balked. We’ve got nowhere on the Sandià robbery, nowhere on the three DBs . . . Hell, even this Valderas killing has gotten all screwed up because of paperwork missing out of the file. Charlie Harris put it there, and now it’s gone. Just vanished. It makes sense, Walsh. It makes so much fucking sense I’m staggered I didn’t see it before.”

  Walsh leaned back in the seat. His coffee was forgotten. He was in shock, disbelieving, but somehow could see the sense of what Madigan was telling him.

  “Jesus Christ,” he finally exhaled.

  “You have a case now, my friend,” Madigan said. “Robbery, seven homicides that we know of, maybe some compadres in the department. You got yourself a career-maker, my friend, a freaking career-maker. You understand what I’m telling you here?”

  Walsh exhaled. He looked down at the name that Madigan had written on the napkin.

  “Soak it up, Walsh. It’s gonna get noisy, I tell you. Get yourself ready for some fireworks, my friend. This is a once-in-a-lifetime bust for you, and if you screw it up . . .” Madigan shook his head. “This is your baby, no one else’s. I’m not IA. I’ve got enough shit to deal with already.”

  “Jesus,” Walsh said under his breath. “Jesus Christ Almighty.”

  Madigan drained his coffee cup and stood up.

  “Wait up,” Walsh said.

  Madigan paused.

  “You said for me to come down here because I owed you, and I get here and you give me a case that could make my career. What the hell is this? I owe you again?”

  Madigan shook his head. “No, you don’t owe me again. Do this thing and we’re even.”

  “Why? You got something against him?”

  “Personally? No, nothing against him personally. This entire fucking thing is a mess, and Sandià is behind all of it. I just want to see him fall, and I want to see him fall hard.” Madigan nodded toward the napkin on the table. “And if that means that he has to fall too, then so be it. Things have been too fucked up for too long, and I just wanna get them straight again.”

  Walsh nodded. “Okay, Vincent, I’ll start working on this. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Appreciated.”

  Madigan left the diner. He walked to the car, pulled away from the curb, all the while thinking that the liar inside him would always be there.

  Madigan went over to the precinct, put his car in the basement garage and took the elevator. He checked at the desk: Bryant was in his office.

  It was close to five. Bryant, if he’d come on at nine was already at the end of his shift. No matter. What Madigan had to tell him wouldn’t take long. He knocked on the door.

  “Come!”

  Madigan opened up and went in.

  “Hey, Vincent, what’s up?” Bryant asked.

  “Need a word, Sarge,” Madigan said.

  Bryant looked at Madigan.

  Madigan did the worried expression well. Perhaps it came easy from all the years of bullshitting people.

  “What is it, Vincent? Take a seat.”

  Madigan sat down. “Don’t know how to go around it, so I’m gonna tell you straight.” He paused for effect. Took a deep breath. “I think Walsh is on the take.”

  Madigan took a secret pleasure in observing Bryant’s reaction to what he was telling him. His shift in expression, the smile, the laugh, the abrupt discontinuation of that laugh as he saw that Madigan’s expression wasn’t changing, was almost the same as Walsh’s.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I have a CI . . . off the books, you don’t know him. Name doesn’t matter. He recorded something on his phone. I haven’t heard it, but apparently he had a meet with Walsh and Walsh offered to lose some evidence in exchange for some info that Walsh was after on someone here. I didn’t get all the details, but I figure that whatever evidence that might have been has already taken a walk from storage.”

  “What info?” Bryant asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it might have had something to do with the fourth man we’ve been talking about. The robbery last Tuesday, the drug house thing, the three DBs in the storage unit. Apparently this guy, my guy . . . Well, he reckons that the fourth guy was a cop, even knows his name, and he was all for buying himself a get-out-of-jail-free card. So he spoke to Walsh . . .”

  “Hold up a minute there,” Bryant interjected. “You’re telling me that your CI has some info on a cop that’s in with Sandià, or a cop that robbed Sandià?”

  “Looks like they are one and the same guy.”

  “And your CI offered this info to Walsh?”

  “Right.”

  “What the hell would he offer it to Walsh for? Walsh is IA. How would he even know Walsh?”

  Madigan shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just telling you that this guy has a recording on his phone of Walsh agreeing to the deal. In exchange for the name of this cop, Walsh will lose some evidence. It ain’t complicated. My CI tells me, I think ‘Oh fuck’ . . . and here I am telling you so you can do whatever you have to about it.”

  “Who knows about this?”

  “Three people. Me, you, my CI.”

  “And does Walsh know that your CI taped this conversation?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Sarge. I’m sitting talking to my guy about some unrelated shit and he lets me have this out of left field. What am I supposed to do? Get all excited? Get a hard-on about the thing like it’s some big deal and blow it up? My first instinct was to play it down, make nothing of it, despite the fact that the press would cut their own fucking hands off to get something noisy about the PD in the headlines. I’m trying to act lik
e it’s no big deal, that no one would be interested. Meanwhile, I’m wondering what the hell would happen if it got out that Internal Affairs—the very department that’s supposed to be dealing with potential police corruption—are as corrupt as the crooks. Jesus, what a goddamned nightmare. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m also thinking to get back here as fast as I can and tell you about it so you can take whatever action you need to.”

  “Good,” Bryant said. “Good job.”

  “It was common sense, Sarge. Jesus, if someone in this precinct is in with Sandià then that cellphone recording is gonna be worth a million to them. Get that phone, and they’ll have something on Walsh. They’ll have all the get-out-of-jail cards. The shit that Sandià’s into, the drugs, the gambling, the hookers . . . IA gets hold of someone who’s an insider in the department, then whoever that is, well, he’s going away for a long time, right?”

  Bryant was elsewhere, as if he hadn’t even heard what Madigan was saying.

  “Sarge?” Madigan prompted.

  “Yes,” Bryant said, and snapped to. “Right, yes, of course . . . I’ll get onto it.”

  “Okay, well that was all. Walsh might be a dirty cop and someone needs to do something before it all goes to hell. Aside from that, Walsh might have evidence against an even dirtier cop, and it would be good to know that a storm like that was on its way so we can do as much damage control as possible, right?”

  “Yes, for sure. I’ll handle it,” Bryant said. “You did the right thing, Vincent . . . coming to me. Appreciated.”

  “Well, what the hell else was I going to do? My CI wanted to go sell it to the press, for Christ’s sake. He made a noise about it somewhere and he got word back that someone would be up for giving him a hundred and fifty grand for that phone. Can you believe it? A hundred and fifty grand. But then, if it puts the PD on the front pages of the newspapers for a week it’s gotta be worth at least that much, wouldn’t you say?”

  “More,” Bryant said. “More than that. Would be a huge story.” He smiled forcibly. He looked overwhelmed. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “No problem,” Madigan replied, and added, “And if there’s anything I can do to help straighten this thing out, then say the word, okay?”