by Bob Mayer
“Hey mom,” he called out. “Uncle Nathan.”
“William!” his mother straightened from her perpetual stoop, a woman broken before she had a chance to become a person, her drawn face lightening with a bright smile. She opened her arms wide and he stepped into her hug. She was short and stout, physically solid.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head to his chest. “Hey, mom.” She smelled of cigarettes, home and pain.
Nathan held out two paper bags of groceries and Kane released his mother and took them into the house. It didn’t take long to unload as his mother only bought enough to fit in the two wheeled wire cart she’d roll up the hill the quarter mile to the A&P on Eastchester Road and back home. Having a ride didn’t change that long-standing routine and cause her to exceed her weekly grocery allowance. Kane and Nathan sat at the kitchen table as his mother and sister quickly stored the food.
Mrs. Kane didn’t pause, shifting from storing into preparing dinner. “Are you staying for supper, William?” she asked.
“I gotta work tonight, mom,” Kane said. He tried to remember what the dinner was on Wednesday. All he could recall was fish on Friday.
“Doing what?” Nathan asked.
“Working,” Kane snapped.
“Hey, I apologized for the other day,” Nathan said.
“You did? To me?”
“Boys!” Mrs. Kane smacked a ladle on the countertop.
“Sorry, mom/sis,” Kane and Nathan said in unison.
Mrs. Kane put a hand on Kane’s head, running her fingers through his thick hair, avoiding the scar. “What if I make something just for you right now, Will? If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have made some lasagna, just for you.”
“Need an empty stomach for what I’ve got to do,” Kane said.
“And what’s that?” Nathan demanded.
“All the cross border ops I went on,” Kane said, “I rarely ever took a shit. They say some people get scared shitless in combat, and that was my version. I could go a week without.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at him with varying degrees of shock and disapproval.
“William,” his mother finally managed to say.
“I learned not to eat before an op,” Kane said. “Just explaining.”
“You going on an ‘op’ tonight?” Nathan asked.
“I’m taking care of business,” Kane said.
“Will!” Mrs. Kane said, still stuck on the profanity.
“Sorry, mom. Didn’t mean to be rude. Thanks for the offer, but I gotta pass for today. Maybe next time?”
Mrs. Kane shook her head and returned to preparing supper.
“What business?” Nathan asked.
Kane faced his uncle. “I’m glad you’re here, Uncle Nathan. I gotta ask you something.”
“What?”
“But first. Put Omar Strong on the Task Force.”
“What?”
“You’re repeating yourself,” Kane said. “You said details will be the key. Strong’s a detail guy. Uncle Conner said no to your offer. Get Strong on it. Then I’ll accept your apology. You know he’d be a good addition.”
Nathan twitched a nod. “I’ll talk to the Captain.”
“All right. Now. What I really want to ask you. The accident.”
Mrs. Kane’s ladle paused over the large pot. Mary crossed herself. Nathan’s face shifted from uncle/brother to cop. Several seconds of silence ticked off.
“I realized something the other day,” Kane said. “It’s strange the things I never thought of before. Why was Taryn in that intersection? She was staying at her parent’s house. It’s out of the way for her to be on Gun Hill Road getting from her parents to LaGuardia.”
“She was here.” Nathan tapped the table. “Helping set up the welcome home party.”
“Really?” Kane asked, watching his mother’s back and Mary’s face. “She wasn’t here to talk about something?”
“She was excited you were finally coming home,” Nathan said. “We all were.”
“She didn’t like being here,” Kane said. “Dad didn’t make her feel welcome.”
“You were coming home from the war,” Nathan said.
“From jail,” Kane said.
“What’s up your ass?” Nathan asked.
“Nate!” Kane’s mother said. She threw drown the ladle and walked onto the back stoop, taking her purse with her, the screen door creaking shut behind her. She extracted a pack of cigarettes and lit one. She stared at the limp laundry, separated from the conversation, but could hear everything through the screen door.
“Conner says you were at the accident before him,” Kane said to Nathan. “That you covered Joseph with your coat.”
Nathan didn’t respond.
“Was there paperwork in her car?” Kane asked. “A legal envelope? You know, one of those big ones. Might have had the Marcelle Law Firm logo on it. In fact, it’s something she might have brought in here and discussed with all of you.”
Nathan returned Kane’s gaze, thousands of interrogations having steeled the face and trained the eyes to look at the worst of humanity without blinking. “No.”
“You sound pretty definite,” Kane said. “Conner wasn’t sure about the accident scene. And he was at work, not here, beforehand. You got there before him. What’s weird is that the other day I saw a copy of a divorce decree in Toni’s files. Dated the day before the accident. Toni said Taryn had the original with her that day.”
“I didn’t see nothing.”
“You sound like Conner now,” Kane said, “when Aileen asks him how many drinks he’d had as soon as he walks in the door. The thing is, Uncle Nathan, Taryn wasn’t excited I was coming home. She was going to the airport to serve me a divorce and take full custody of Joseph. You all knew that. Everyone knew. And no one told me. All these years.”
“You saw Taryn in the hospital after—“ Nathan began.
Kane cut him off. “She was unconscious. Had a skull fracture. Remember? Since you were at the accident and helped load her on the ambulance. They put her out in the hospital because they were worried about her brain swelling and had to drill into it. I lay there all night, at the foot of her bed. Like a loyal dog. Then her parents came in. They knew too. Fuck. Now I know why they did what they did. They kicked me out. I didn’t even get to tell her Joseph was dead. They took that from me.”
“She knew,” Nathan said.
Kane stopped. “What?”
“Taryn was conscious when they put her on the gurney for the ambulance,” Nathan said. “I’m pretty sure she knew.”
“More fucking news,” Kane said, gripping the edge of the table, knuckles white.
“They coulda waited on the funeral for the kid,” Nathan complained.
“His name was Joseph,” Kane said. “And no, they couldn’t. According to Islam a person should be buried within twenty-four hours.”
“That’s another thing—“ Nathan started, but Kane cut him off once more.
“I don’t want to hear about fucking religion.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kane could see his mother stiffen, but she remained turned away. “Dad’s still a protestant, isn’t he? He doesn’t go to church, but he didn’t convert to Catholicism. Not that he practices, what is it? Lutheran? I didn’t convert to Islam.”
“Then you ran away,” Nathan said.
Mary turned from the stove. “Why did you leave, Will?”
Kane looked at his sister. “I was angry.”
“At Taryn for the accident?” Mary asked.
“I was mad at the world. At everyone and everything. And it was a mistake, sis, okay? I shouldn’t have. But at the time it seemed the best option. I was afraid what would happen if I didn’t go away. What I would do.” He turned back to his uncle. “When Taryn regained consciousness, she told her family to keep me out. Then filed, re-filed I now know, for divorce except she no longer needed the custody part. I signed it and left the country. What was I going to do?”
“Will?” Mary’s
eyes were glistening. “That’s the past. We all gotta let the past be. No sense dwelling on the terrible.”
“Terrible is all I have. I’ve been mourning all these years for something that wasn’t even there.” Kane stood. He put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “If you do happen to see Taryn or talk to her, tell her I apologize. Truly. From the bottom of my heart. For everything.” He walked outside. He leaned over his mother and kissed her on the top of her head. “I love you, mom,” he whispered so only she could hear. “I’m sorry for having let you and dad down.”
He left.
GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
The heat was unbearable, rising in shimmering waves from the asphalt and concrete. The sidewalks were almost deserted. The approaching evening offered little in the way of relief. It wasn’t just the sun, it was the air itself. Cloying, humid, oppressive, perfectly still without the slightest hint of a breeze. A summer day that Mother Nature delivered every so often to humble the paved island of Manhattan, the kings of Wall Street, the stars of Broadway, the movers and the shakers, to demonstrate who truly ruled.
The ‘note’ was pinned to Kane’s door with a flourish of overkill: a cleaver in the center of a sheet of meat wrapping paper. The writing was in marker and childish, but the message was simple:
NORTH CORNR JACKSON SQ PK.
BRING WHAT YOU GOT
Kane pried the cleaver out of the wood and placed it and the note inside. There was no ‘Don’t Bring the Cops’ as that was implied.
Kane shut the door and went through the apartment to the back. Pope sat on a bench in the shade, an extension cord running to a fan futilely spinning hot air over him.
“I may have misspoken about England’s climate,” Pope said. “One should not challenge the Gods of weather.”
Kane joined him. “I remember lying in bed as a kid, soaked in sweat, the window open, listening to the jets taking off from LaGuardia. We were underneath the flight path. Couldn’t hear the TV every three minutes for about ten seconds as they passed overhead. My dad would be pissed, which was pretty much the norm anyway. I’d hear the planes and think there are people coming and going places. Doing things. Not lying around sweating.”
“They were moving and sweating,” Pope said.
“Not on the planes.”
“True.”
They both lapsed into baked silence.
Kane finally broke it. “You might want to stay away for a few days.”
“More visitors expected?” Pope asked.
“Probably not,” Kane said, “but just to be on the safe side. I talked to the concierge at the Washington Square Hotel. Tell him I sent you and he’s got a nice suite ready.”
“All right. I appreciate it.”
Another minute passed.
“Going prowling tonight?” Pope asked.
Kane checked his watch. “In a sense.”
“Watch out for that Son of Sam,” Pope said as Kane stood.
“He’s a coward who ambushes unsuspecting people in the dark,” Kane said. “He’d never come after someone he’d consider a threat. They’ll catch him. Sooner rather than later. They’ve got people like my Uncle Nathan working on it. And they’ll have a new guy. Very detail oriented. They’ll find some little thread and pull on it and find whatever hole he’s hiding in.”
“Your confidence is reassuring,” Pope said.
“The problem,” Kane said, “is that there are other monsters out there, wolves among the sheep.” He shook hands with Pope. “By the way, Patience is on the left. Fortitude on the right as you face the library. I’m all out of the former, but I’ve got the second in spades.”
Pope stood, still holding Kane’s hand. “Stay safe, son.”
Wednesday Evening, 13 July 1977
GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Kane exchanged a sympathetic glance with the sweating hooker who stalked by, pleading at the traffic, trying to find a paying customer, preferably with air conditioning in their car. A street vendor sweltered under his umbrella farther down the sidewalk on the northern pinnacle of the park formed by the intersection of Greenwich and Eighth Avenue. Both streets were one way heading north and merged at that point. Sizzling air reflected from the ground. Grates emitted rumblings from the subway line below and released even more hot air along with the peculiar odor from the underground tunnels of standing foul water, masses of people crowded together, trash, rats, dead things and electrified air.
Kane felt exposed as cars rolled by on both sides, but this was Damon’s attempt to regain command of a bad situation. Along Horatio Street to the south, a dozen or so trees struggled to grow, back-dropped by apartment buildings. Their leaves drooped in the heat, the sap retreating into the branches and core. Kane wore his usual attire, with the map case looped over his left shoulder.
At precisely seven the long, gold limousine with darkened windows and Mercedes emblem on the front of the hood pulled up along Greenwich. The hooker took a tentative step forward but it went past her, so close she had to jump back to avoid having her feet crushed under the wheels. A rear door swung open toward Kane. He accepted the invite and the glare from the streetwalker as he entered.
The interior was dark and cool as air conditioning pulsed out of vents. It took a moment for Kane’s eyes to adjust. He was seated in the left rear, facing forward. Another seat row faced rearward in the spacious passenger compartment. Sean Damon was on the right side. He wore a gray suit with a green tie indicating he might be color-blind.
Directly facing Kane was a slender, white-haired man with a Thompson submachinegun on his lap tracking Kane and fixing on him. The gunman, according to the press clipping and Pope’s finger, was Winters, garbed in black trousers and turtleneck.
Damon had a bandage on the left side of his face, the only visible result of Farrah’s slashes. “Glad to be out of the heat, lad?”
Kane nodded. “Not bad.”
“Mercedes 600 Pullman,” Damon said. “Only two hundred made so far.”
“Right.”
“V-8, single overhead camshafts and Bosch fuel injection,” Damon continued. “Three hundred horsepower, although we lose fifty of that for the hydraulic system. But it’s worth it.
“Sounds complicated.”
“The Krauts are bastards about most things, but they can engineer. Got to give them that.”
“They also make trains run on time,” Kane said.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Damon said.
“Depends where the train’s going.” Kane nodded toward Winters. “Got the twenty round box magazine. Smart. The drum tends to mis-feed.”
“It does,” Winters agreed.
Damon tapped the glass divider with a large ring on his right hand. It power opened. “Take us for a spin, Dunne, me boy.”
The glass shut and the heavy car rolled.
“The reason I tell you this about the car,” Damon said, “is that—oh, as a point of interest, Hugh Hefner has one. And the villains in two Bond movies were chauffeured in the same—I want you to understand something.”
“You’re a villain?”
“Look at your seat,” Damon said, waving a hand.
The fine leather was in terrible shape. Dark stains and inadequate patch jobs speckled the surface, a stark contrast to where Winters and Damon sat.
“The trunk behind you,” Damon said, “is steel lined. Serves two purposes. First, it’s large and very secure for carrying important cargo, such as my luggage, and people whom I don’t like and don’t want to talk to. A person can scream all they want in there, but no one outside the car can hear. In here? The screams sound quite lovely given the acoustics.”
“Good thing I’m in here then,” Kane said.
“Don’t be, you fuck. The second reason for the metal lining is if my friend here, Mister Winters, has to use his tommygun, he will riddle you, and the rounds, after they aerate your corpse, will rattle around in the trunk and be contained. And I don’t concern myself with a spot of blood
on the upholstery as you can tell.”
“Maybe you could fit a guillotine in here?” Kane suggested.
“I’ll think about it.” Damon’s dark glasses stared at him, face expressionless. “Are you armed?”
“Yes.”
Damon pointed at a small table on the right side of the limo. “Put your weapons on that. Don’t skimp. My associate in the front passenger seat will pat you down when we arrive at our destination and if he finds something deadly slipped your mind, it won’t be pleasant.”
“Otherwise it will be?” Kane reached for the .45.
Winters spoke up. “Two fingers, laddie. Thumb and forefinger only.” His brogue was heavy for someone who’d grown up in Hell’s Kitchen.
Kane did as ordered. Then he removed the knife from the sheath in the middle of his back.
“What’s in the bag?” Winters said.
“Films.”
Winters gestured with the muzzle, not enough to lose aim.
The map case joined the weapons. Damon leaned forward and snatched the case off the table. Looked inside. Checked the labels.
“They real, boss?” Winters asked.
“Unfortunately for this shit, they are.” Damon put the film back in the map case. Laid it on the seat between him and Winters. “Where did you get them? Did that fucking cunt Farrah give them to you?”
“You know she didn’t by the names and dates on them. Before her time. You know where I acquired them.”
“Where is my sweet young lass?” Damon asked. “She was absent when we arrived to collect her from the hospital this morning.”
“Not in the city any more. And she won’t be coming back.”
“I suspect not,” Damon said. “But you’ll be telling me where you sent her off to. And she’ll die wherever that is. Slow and red like the cunt deserves for cutting me.”
Winters chimed in. “Told you we should have killed the whore in the hospital yesterday, boss. No play time on her. Not worth it.”
Damon emitted a spark of irritation. “We’ll take care of it, Win. Too blatant and that spook copper might have gotten more interested.”
“You owe her six thousand, four hundred and thirty-two dollars,” Kane said.
