by Paul O'Brien
“I’m so happy to see you,” Danno said sincerely. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”
Danno compressed Lenny’s slight frame and lifted him off the ground. Lenny could see that Danno was far more happy to see him now than he ever was when he worked for him.
“I thought you were dead,” Danno said holding Lenny at arms length. “I thought … ”
Danno became emotional. But he stopped himself from crying.
“I’m not dead, boss. I should have said something to you. I was going to call when we got settled. Me and the family.”
Danno didn’t care. He just wanted another hug.
Mickey Jack Crisp stood in Dallas Airport with more money than he knew what to do with. He could maybe go home to Florida and set up something. A little business, or use the money for a deposit on a house or something. He would more than likely use it for no good. Maybe get some girls. Definitely get some girls.
“Whatever you have left will be fine,” Mickey Jack said at the airport rent-a-car desk.
Danno’s chartered plane waited for him somewhere on the runway outside, but Mickey just wanted to get back to Florida. He didn’t want to get any further in with those wrestling guys. They were all at war, and it was hard for Mickey to know which horse to back in that race.
He had cash stuffed and taped all over his body. A car would be easier. A day or two to Gainesville, then he could fade into obscurity.
Mickey Jack Crisp had earned his money and he did what he was paid to do.
Kinda.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Troy Bartlett was four days in various hold cages. He was moved constantly from precinct to precinct and kept in the dark as to why he was picked up – or what they were holding him for.
Although, even with all his clients, he knew it was because he was Danno Garland’s lawyer.
For the first couple of days he tried threatening the cops. But he knew they didn’t give a fuck about the law. Then he tried reasoning. Then he gave up. Just sat there. Wondering. Trying to piece together what was going on.
From one shitty green precinct to another. The constant sound of filing cabinets opening and closing and typewriters being pecked at. Phones ringing. Cars starting and parking outside.
All Troy was told was there was no room for him in whatever division and he would be moved again. Precinct to precinct, with nobody talking.
But he knew it was connected to Danno.
Troy had been around enough departments, heard enough stories and paid enough envelopes to know what the bent cops looked like.
And he knew he was being tailed. Particularly when it was business to do with Danno Garland. Troy hoped the tail would go when Danno’s senate hearing was over. He was wrong.
Katy Spence, the red-haired lady that convinced Danno she was Troy’s broke secretary, stood outside the holding room. She was dressed in full police department uniform.
Katy entered the room.
“How are you today Troy?” she asked as she sat by the side of the wire mesh cage.
Troy had enough. He owed nobody nothing in this world. Not even Danno Garland. He had been tight-lipped for days but he wasn’t made for this. He was a meticulous man who couldn’t abide imposition. He wasn’t tough or street smart, and didn’t want to be. He was paid to be a different kind of smart. A type of smart that he knew one day could end him up exactly where he was.
“I last spoke to Danno Garland less than two weeks ago. On October first,” he said without much prompting.
Katy was taken a little off guard by Troy’s candor. She had been trying to get him to talk for days but he always resisted. Maybe he had simply been stewing for long enough.
Troy continued. “It was the day before the senate hearings. He didn’t know how it was going to go. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He was stashing all his cash in bags and running around his house packing up valuables.”
“And what did you talk about?” Katy asked.
She felt slightly out of her depth but she didn’t want Troy to stop now that he started.
“I need to get out of here,” Troy said. “I think I’m losing my fucking mind.”
“I can arrange that after a few more questions,” Katy replied.
In an ordinary case moving in an ordinary direction, there would be no way a rookie like Katy would be let near a witness.
But there was nothing ordinary about this at all.
“The last piece of business I had with Danno was a pre-emptive and hasty meeting in the barn beside his house. He wanted to move his businesses out of his own name just in case the government decided to go after him.”
Twelve days before.
New York.
Danno threw his father’s picture on the bed. He clicked open the safe and dragged the blocks of cash onto a waiting bedsheet on the floor.
In the kitchen, he pulled out the drawers and dipped his arm into the body of the cabinets and pulled out more bags of cash.
In the barn, he hurriedly pulled more money that was wrapped in plastic from the bales of hay.
“Annie?” he shouted as he rushed through the barn doors.
“Danno?” said a male voice from behind. Danno stopped dead and waited for something.
“Danno?” the voice repeated.
It sounded familiar so Danno felt better about turning. Behind him stood his no-nonsense, grey-faced lawyer, Troy Bartlett. “I’ve got the papers you asked for. Is everything okay?”
Danno happily nodded his head.
“Would you like to go inside?” Troy asked.
“I don’t have time,” Danno answered as he looked around for his wife. “I just need someplace safe to move some of my … ” Danno lowered his voice, “ … in case the government tries to fuck me over.”
Troy nodded knowingly and held out a prepared file. “I’ve got the papers for your businesses here like you asked. I’ve placed Mrs. Garland … ”
“No,” Danno simply said.
“Excuse me? I thought you were wanting to shift your assets into … ”
“I am. But not her.” Danno felt his words betray his wife. “Not that I don’t … ”
Danno’s embarrassment caught his lawyer off guard.
“I’m just here to do as you say, Mr. Garland.”
“We’ll just think of someone else, that’s all,” Danno said as he hurriedly opened the file.
He didn’t trust Annie with his business. He didn’t know how the hearings were going to go. He didn’t know if he was going to spend time inside or not. The last thing that felt right to Danno Garland was legally transferring everything he had to the woman he knew was running around behind his back.
“Who did he sign the business over to?” Katy asked.
Troy thought about how he was to answer. He wanted out of the cell in the worst way. He felt a certain loyalty to Danno over the years. But, here he was, cell number four and there was no knight on a white horse breaking down the door to rescue him. He always knew that the wrestling business was cut-throat. He just didn’t think that he was far enough in to have to worry about it.
“Mr. Bartlett?” Katy asked again. “Who did Danno Garland sign his assets over to?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The First Precinct was small, too small for the amount of work that an under pressure city was throwing at it. Inside the front door stood the large booking desk, a fleet of filing cabinets, a couple of hand-marked doors and Captain Miller silently waiting by the restrooms.
His quiet demeanor made all the other cops working around him anxious. They pantomimed their work a little more to try and show him how hard they were trying. A couple of new officers even admonished a suspect in front of him and then dragged him away, thinking that’s what Matthew Miller liked.
They were wrong.
He was only sitting there for one reason. And that reason walked in the door.
“You,” he said to Nestor. “In here.”
The captain stood and walked
into the vacant interview room beside him. Nestor took off his coat and shook the rain off it. He watched as the other cops could hardly hold their delight at someone, anyone, getting called in to be yelled at.
Or, at least, that’s what it looked like was going to happen.
Nestor thought for a fleeting second about walking past the open door and continuing on his way upstairs to his desk. He didn’t have time for any of this bureaucratic bullshit.
But still he marched into the room like a kid going before a principal.
“Close the door,” the captain ordered.
Nestor closed the door. Through the blind he could see the rapid exchange of information between his colleagues as to what they thought was happening.
“Sit down.”
Nestor sat down.
“What happened with Danno Garland last night?” the captain asked.
“I don’t know,” Nestor answered.
“Two uniforms picked him up at the airport. They said that you were involved.”
“Cooper?” Nestor asked.
Miller barely nodded in response.
Nestor seemed agitated that he even had to answer. “That asshole picked up Garland for nothing. If we’re going to get something on him, we have to make sure that it’s something that’s going to stick.”
“And what’s that got to do with you, one way or the other?”
Nestor took a split second too long to answer. “Because of the conversation that you and I had in your office the other day. I wanted to see if there was anything to what you were saying. Help you out.”
The captain slipped his hands in his pockets and rocked backwards and forwards on his heels. Nestor recognized this as Irish Cop Confidence 101.
“You were just helping your captain out?”
“Doing my job. Sir.”
Miller saw a little too much attitude coming from Nestor.
“You’re a liar,” Captain Miller said bluntly.
“What?”
“You’re lying to me. And I fucking won’t have it.”
“Are you accusing me of … ?”
“You’re damn right I am,” Miller said as he shot forward. “You’re holding back on me about this man. You know things. You have a handle on what’s going on out there with him and his crew. And you’re still not telling me. And that leads me to think things I shouldn’t be thinking.”
“Not true.”
“Not true?”
Nestor had enough. “Do you want me to talk honestly in here?”
The captain nodded again.
“There is corruption in this precinct – but not in this room.”
The emergence of a silhouette through the blind stopped the captain’s momentum. The figure outside knocked on the door. Neither man inside moved to answer it, so the waiting officer knocked again.
“Yeah?” Miller impatiently shouted.
A slightly nervous officer opened the door. “Sir?”
“What?” Miller walked around the table and right into the officer’s face.
“Can’t you get even a sense that I might be in the middle of something here?”
“Sorry sir, it’s just … ”
“What, it’s just what?” Miller asked impatiently.
“Well sir … ”
“What?”
“Central just told us that they got a call tipping them off about the location of a body Upstate.”
“And?” the captain asked.
The officer had no choice but to respond in front of Nestor. “The tip-off said the body was put there by Danno Garland. Sir.”
The captain was suddenly quiet. So was Nestor.
“Do you know anything about this?” Captain Miller asked Nestor.
Nestor shook his head.
“What do you want to do?” the officer at the door sheepishly asked.
There was no response. Only thinking. So the officer tried a little prodding. “If you think we have something on this guy, we should move now.”
Nestor couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How did this get by him? He knew Danno wasn’t the killing kind. He figured it must have been something to do with the murder of his wife.
“This tip-off. Is it credible?” Nestor asked.
“Central say he left dates, times, places. It was someone who knew what they were talking about.”
Nestor knew his boss was watching his reaction. He couldn’t let it be seen that the new information affected him in any way.
“What do you want to do, sir?” the officer asked.
Captain Miller waited and weighed up everything he had before answering. There was no other answer he could give.
“Tell Central there is an ongoing investigation here and that we’ll handle this.”
Nestor jumped up from his seat.
“But not you,” the captain said to Nestor. “You’re staying here with me.”
“And Danno Garland?” the officer asked.
“Find him. But hold the position. If there is something to this I want it done right. And above board. I don’t want anyone doing anything without my say so.”
Nestor tried to cover his disappointment and frustration. He did a bad job.
The officer left to relay the captain’s orders.
“Enough of the bullshit. You’re going to stay here and tell me everything you know about this man,” the captain warned.
Ricky’s heart thumped in his chest as he floored the pedal. He tore along the narrowing Seven Lakes Drive road. Either side of him were rust-colored trees and giant boulders stubbornly protruding from the ground.
Miles and miles of forest and trail. A perfect place to hide a body.
Unless someone rats you out.
Ricky wasn’t even sure if Mickey Jack Crisp put the body where he said he was going to put the body.
But he had to find out.
There was Danno and his protection – Ricky always, always protected the boss – but there was also Ricky and his own protection. As much as he hated being dragged in, he had the twisting stomach of a man who was clawing at the edge of a slippery black hole.
And he wanted to make sure he did everything he could to make it less slippery.
He thought of Ginny, alone. He thought of his life taken from him. All because of the actions of another man. He raged at himself for being so selfish. This business, the business came first.
He knew all the players were changeable.
In his rearview mirror Ricky saw a sight that stopped his breath. The impatient flicker of red and blue lights approaching him at speed through the thick Upstate fog. Otherwise, the road was empty and long. Had Tanner sold him out already?
He rushed through the contents of his car in his mind. Was there anything? Anything at all that they could pick up on? What about those tests he saw on TV that they can do now?
Ricky released his foot slightly from the gas and looked for any turning opportunity, left or right.
The siren grew louder and more intimidating as the green and black Plymouth Fury grew visible through the murk.
Quickly, they were upon him, aggressively pulling closer to his car and backing off.
What the fuck?
Ricky slowed down considerably and watched as the squad car overtook him and continued at full speed along the narrow road.
He slid to a relieved stop at the side of the road and watched his greatest fear melt into the distance ahead of him. Ricky had a quick laugh of pure relief.
Until it hit him.
They weren’t looking for him. Yet. But they were heading where he was heading.
Ricky locked his steering wheel and screeched his car back towards the city. He couldn’t do any more than he had already done about the body. Ricky knew the time was fast approaching for him and Ginny to run.
Danno felt he could breathe. In his own kitchen he felt a sense of natural sadness and remorse. He didn’t know why, but he felt he could do that around Lenny Long.
With the side of his eye
he watched his old driver dart around his cabinets and refrigerator.
“There’s only eggs, boss,” Lenny said.
Danno nodded and let Lenny continue. Lenny could see that there was obviously something wrong with Danno. He just didn’t know how to ask. The timing seemed all wrong.
Danno liked that Lenny still called him boss. Those words made Danno feel something close to responsible for him. Like there was a bond between them. Maybe even a friendship.
When Lenny first came to Danno he was a ‘mark’. He didn’t know shit about how the business truly worked.
But now Danno saw him differently. He saw that Lenny had a goodness in him that was lacking in all corners of the business. Lenny loved wrestling. There were very few in the business who could say that.
Danno loved it once too. He was in awe of it when his father was boss. He was never allowed inside though. His father didn’t seem to want Danno anywhere near wrestling. Now Danno could see why.
Lenny twirled the pan in his hand in a move of confidence. And dropped it on the floor. The clang of which nearly made Danno jump out the window with fright.
“What the fuck … ?”
“Sorry.”
Lenny picked up the pan, wiped it with his shirt and laid it gently on the stove.
It was getting overcast and cold outside. The open windows let some new life into the house, but with it came a cold nip.
“Can you take me somewhere, Lenny?”
“Drive you?”
“Yeah.”
Lenny smiled. It had only been a little while but it felt like old times anyway. “It would be my pleasure.”
“We’ll have something when we get back.”
Lenny definitely knew there was something really wrong. He never heard Danno turning down food before. “Okay.”
Danno got up and leaned over to close the top of the window and saw a child wandering around outside.
There was a light tap on the door. “Dad?” Luke called from outside.
“Who the fuck is that?” Danno asked.
“It’s my boy,” Lenny said. “I told them both to wait outside.”
