He would have sniffed out that the assassin was lining up the back of his skull between the sights, index finger slowly coiled around the trigger, preparing to fire.
Morrigan inserted the key into the lock.
The door opened.
The Irishman prepared to squeeze.
And then McNulty’s cell phone vibrated in three quick successions in his jacket pocket.
26
Black and White
Tommy Morrigan was gnawing at his fingernail to the point that it was on the cusp of bleeding. His nerves were on edge. He would have preferred that John wasn’t involved in the whole thing, but the fact of the matter was that he was. Shit, Tommy thought. Don’t fuck this up, John. Just give them what they want…
He shot up out of his chair and paced around the hotel room, huffing and slapping himself on the chest like an ape to try and burn off some of the adrenaline that was coursing through his body and keeping him alert and jittery like he’d had ten strong cups of coffee. The sheer anticipation and fear of the unknown playing out made him feel like he did back in the days when he was hooked on coke, and blowing money on women, booze, and most any other vice he could get his hands on.
He looked over at the clock and saw that it was reaching close to nine thirty. Time felt like it had slowed to a creep, and Tommy’s eyes kept looking over at his cell phone with the ringer turned up on high as he checked the time on the display every twenty seconds. “Come on, come on,” he said through gritted teeth. “Pick up the phone and call me, damn you…”
Seconds that felt like minutes passed before he moved to the bed, plopped down, and shook his head repeatedly.
Then the phone rang.
Tommy answered it before it got through the first ring. “Yeah,” he greeted. “Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Tommy?” Klein said.
“Who the fuck else would it be?”
“Calm down and show a bit of respect.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down—what the hell is going on?”
A sigh.
“What?” Tommy pressed.
“Well,” Klein began, “looks like your brother has a tough time seeing the light—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tommy hammered his left fist on the bedside locker. “Hey, Klein, listen to me and don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m not the one being stupid—your brother is.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Enough to let me know that he doesn’t want to play ball. Look, kid, I gave the prick a chance, but I can’t give him another.”
“What are you saying?”
A pause. “You know what I’m saying.”
Tommy’s heart sank into his stomach. “Jesus, Klein, listen to me. Please. Let me talk to John.”
“Too late. You had your shot, ace. What else could you do to try and persuade him? I dangled what we had on him right in his damn face and he gave all of two fucks.”
“Klein—”
“Enough, Tommy. That’s enough. Your brother made his choice. Now he’s gotta live with that. Well, technically he’s gotta die with it, but you get the idea.”
Tommy sat back down on the bed. It felt like his world was coming to an end. He may not have liked his brother—but he sure as hell didn’t want to kill him. “Klein,” he pleaded. “Please, man.”
“My guy, McNulty, is already on it,” Klein said. “I can’t back down now.”
Tommy pounded his fist on the end table next to him, the lamp seated on top flickering and nearly falling to the ground. “Bullshit! You’re running the show here, man. You make the calls.” He sighed. Calmed himself. “Look, just give me a chance to reason with John. He’s my brother. Give me one more shot to try and convince him. Please. If he doesn’t listen to reason…” Tommy threw his hands up—he couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.
A long pause from Klein’s end, his breathing the only thing audible. “You understand that the people I’m working for are gonna start throwing a fit if this thing goes sideways?”
“I do.”
“Then call your fucking brother. Talk to that hardheaded prick and get him to listen to reason.”
“I will.”
“Tommy,” Klein shifted his weight, “this is on you if this doesn’t work out. You understand that?”
“I do.”
“No, no, no. I don’t think you do. I don’t think you’re grasping what I’m saying.”
“Then quit talking in riddles, Klein.”
“I’m saying that you’re going to be the one with a bullet lodged in his brain if your brother starts blowing things up. You understanding me?”
Tommy began shaking, the words choked up in his throat. He was rolling the dice with every second that passed and every word he spoke. He knew that—he just wanted to make sure he did all he could to not see John’s NYPD funeral broadcast on the tube in a few days’ time. “I understand,” was all he said before Klein abruptly ended the call.
As the dial tone rang out like a flatline on a heart monitor, Tommy stood up and lingered near the window, the twinkling high-rises of NYC glimmering with an ominous phosphorescence. He slowed his breathing, thoughts dwelling on his brother and praying that the guy Klein had sent after John was slinking back into the shadows.
On the other side of town, Klein, standing up from his leather chair in his high-ticketed office, shook his head as he tossed down his cell phone and began rifling through the drawers for another. Sitting on an armchair gazing out the window next to Klein’s desk, Senator Connolly shook a glass of bourbon gently in his right hand
“What’s the story?” Senator Connolly inquired.
Klein huffed. “I’m putting a pause on the Morrigan hit.”
The senator continued to swirl the liquor in his glass and laughed. “You getting soft or something?”
“No,” Klein said as he punched in a text. “I just don’t want to knock off a cop unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Sounds like a necessity at this current juncture, my friend.”
Klein leveled his gaze at the man and sent off the text, tossing the phone down on the desk with the same impact as a judge’s gavel before rounding his desk and moving to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a strong one. “Fucking NYPD rat,” he seethed. “Morrigan is a fucking stain on this city. That bastard saunters around like a B-movie cowboy with his antics.” He pulled the whiskey bottle and poured two-fingers’ worth. “Christ. I wish he’d just lie down like the rest of the cops we’ve bribed in this city.”
The senator stood, unbuttoned his blazer, and lingered near Klein with the same ease he did when he was at a golf course. “You shouldn’t let that cretin Tommy Morrigan tell you what to do.”
“I’m not,” Klein said, pulling the glass to his lips. “Like I said—I don’t want to knock off a cop unless I absolutely have to.”
Connolly shrugged. “Well, do what you need to do. But I’m worried that Tommy’s loyalty is coming into question.”
Klein shook his head. “He’s just trying to look after his brother. I think we both can empathize with that.”
The man smirked. “No. Not me. I have a brother. Well, had, to be more accurate. Guy was a consummate fuck-up who drained everyone’s time, resources, and energy. I loved the prick—but that didn’t stop me from making him disappear off the face of the earth when I found out he was using the family checkbook to dig himself out with a New Jersey loan shark.”
Klein said nothing as the man continued. “You want to put a hold on the hit on John Morrigan,” the man continued, “that’s fine by me. But I think you need to consider the fact that Tommy Morrigan will be a loose end as soon as this whole thing is resolved.”
Klein sipped his whiskey and stared out the window at the city below. “Just say what you’re insinuating.”
“Okay,” Connolly said as he put down his glass on the desk and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I’m saying that once this is resolved, we off Tommy Mo
rrigan. It’s purely for reasons of security. We wait until we get word that he’s persuaded his brother to roll with the punches, and then we take care of him.”
“You don’t think that’ll piss John Morrigan off?”
“Not if we do it the right way. You said so yourself—your guy McNulty can make things look deliberate or accidental. Put that bastard Tommy behind the wheel of a car and make it look like he went on a bender and crashed into a fucking lamp post. I don’t know. I’m not the professional. He is.”
Klein squinted—thinking. “No,” he said. “No, that won’t cut it.”
“You have to knock off Tommy.”
“Fine. I’m not disputing that. But maybe there’s a way we can adjust it to further cement Morrigan’s relationship with us. When you think about it, when you look at the man’s record, he’s a wealth of information that we’d be foolish to dispose of.”
The man crossed his arms. “Go on…”
Klein held up a finger and began pacing and speaking as if he were giving a lecture. “What if,” he said, “we kill Tommy and make it look like John is responsible. We make it look like he murdered his own brother in cold blood. We use that and hold it over his head. If we use that coupled with the other stuff we have against him—we’ve got him boxed in a corner.”
Connolly digested the information and found himself smiling at the prospect of doubling down on the heat they were dishing to John Morrigan. “I like that,” he said. “I like that a lot.” He then raised his glass up to Klein in a toast.
Klein clinked his glass against the senator’s, downed the rest of his liquor, and set about making the call.
McNulty lowered his weapon, the sights no longer lined up with the back of John Morrigan’s head as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He stepped back into the shadows, backed up down the stairwell, and produced his cell.
McNulty looked at the screen and saw three texts from an unknown number:
IT’S OFF.
MORRIGAN IS STILL IN PLAY.
CONTACT ME.
McNulty wasn’t unnerved or chagrined in the slightest as he pocketed the phone and his gun. He was a professional. It didn’t matter to him if he took out the hit on John Morrigan or not—Klein and his pals would still have to foot the bill.
At the end of the hallway, McNulty could hear John Morrigan twisting open the locks and stepping inside his apartment, completely oblivious to the fact that his skull and brain matter had come so close to being blasted out against his front door.
McNulty, calmly and quietly, stuffed his hands back into his pockets and descended the staircase that led to the front entrance. He took a quick look over both shoulders, opened the door, and stepped out into the night. He was back in his car in less than twenty seconds, and his cell phone was out as he started the engine, with Klein’s number flashing up the screen. He answered.
“Tell me you didn’t do it,” Klein said from the other end.
“No,” McNulty replied, flat and with no enthusiasm.
“Good. We need to make a few adjustments. Are you secure? Morrigan didn’t know you were there, did he?”
“No,” McNulty said.
“Okay…” Klein took his time. “We’re putting a pin in this just for now. But I need you to start making preparations for something else.”
“Who?”
“For Tommy Morrigan. I need you to lay something out that makes it look like John killed him in cold blood. That shouldn’t be too difficult a task, no?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Obviously, we will still pay for the contract we put out on John. I’m sure you’re copacetic with that.”
“Yes.”
“Then start planning. I’ll contact you when we need you to make the move.”
And with that McNulty hung up the phone. It didn’t bother him that plans were changing. The man was an automaton who did whatever he was asked, whenever he was asked. There was no passion. There was no hate. Everything was purely and simply business. Wasting no more time, he put his car into gear, drove back to his hotel, and set about outlining a plan for the murder of Tommy Morrigan.
Morrigan was twisting the locks shut on his apartment door by the time McNulty had slipped out of his complex—unaware of what had just played out with his focus on nothing more than the bottle of suds he had stowed away in his fridge.
He grabbed the television remote from the recliner, punched in a random number on the buttons, and tossed the thing back down. Casablanca in all its black-and-white glory appeared on the screen, and from what Morrigan recalled about the movie, it was about halfway through its running time.
Morrigan opened the fridge and took out his brew, popping the cap off on the edge of a countertop that was starting to show wear from the number of times he had done it before. He sat in the recliner, zoning out as Humphrey Bogart sauntered around Rick’s and spoke in that classic way that only he could. The movie ran almost to the end by the time Morrigan heard a knock on his door, and as soon as he had fetched his gun and draped it at his side—he answered.
Tommy stood at the door, his face pale and breathing hot and heavy. “The hell happened to you?” Morrigan asked him, equal parts happy and annoyed at seeing his brother.
Tommy gestured toward the living room. “Busy?” Morrigan stood aside and engaged the locks as Tommy entered and noted the gun in his brother’s hand. “Jesus, John. Take it easy.”
Morrigan shook his head and stuffed the piece in the back of his pants. “Fuck that. Not after everything that’s been going down.”
A pause. Tommy pointed to Morrigan’s beer. “Can I snag one?”
Morrigan plopped down in his recliner and focused on the television. “No.”
Tommy shook his head, unable to stop himself nervously pacing around the room.
“Sit down, Tommy,” Morrigan said.
Tommy spun around. “I can’t, man. I… Look, we need to talk.”
“We do?”
“Just cut the shit and listen to me.”
“I’m listening, brother. Say what you’re going to say.”
Tommy clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms in a circular motion. “You’re starting to piss Klein off.”
Morrigan took a swig. “Good.”
“No, John, it’s not. You don’t know these people. You can’t fuck with them. I’m serious.”
“You’ve made that point before.”
“Then listen to it! Christ, John, you have no idea how hard it’s been to try and convince them to lay off of you.”
“They don’t scare me.”
“Well, they should, because they’ve got power, pull, and money, and they’re starting to get an itchy trigger finger over this whole situation.”
Morrigan looked at his brother and placed down his beer. “You telling me these Brooks Brothers-looking asswipes are trying to off me?”
“Yes… Do you realize how close you came tonight to getting whacked. Klein had a goon tailing you from the restaurant. I convinced him to call him off.”
John Morrigan stood, his anger quickly welling up inside of him. “How do you do it, Tommy? How do you manage to find so many ways to fuck up?”
Tommy held up his hands. “There’s no point in going through this again—by the way, a little appreciation for saving your skin would be nice.”
“I just don’t get it. Ever since you were a kid—”
Tommy snatched up Morrigan’s beer and threw it against the wall, the glass and suds trailing down the wall in a smear. Neither of them spoke for a couple of seconds. Eventually, Morrigan broke the silence by pointing to the damage and saying: “You know that’s coming out of my deposit, right?”
Tommy held his hands together like he was praying to God and pointed at his brother. “Don’t do this, John. Please, just listen to me. It took everything I could to convince them that you’re not a liability. They’ve got a mountain of dirt against you, brother, and you don’t want to see if they can make it stick.”
/>
Morrigan didn’t reply. He knew that the case files alone they had on him were enough to lock him up for the rest of his life. Hands in his pockets, he slid down onto the chair and closed his eyes like everything playing out was nothing more than a bad dream. “What do you want me to do, Tommy?” he asked. “What can I give you? What can I do to make this headache go away?”
“By doing as they ask,” Tommy said. “Nothing more. John, they were ready to kill you. This isn’t a joke. This isn’t something that you can fight.”
Morrigan clenched his fist. “These corrupt assholes are the reason I became a cop in the first place.”
“Well, whether you like it or not, brother—you’re in the same league now as they are.”
Morrigan’s stomach felt like it was turning in knots when he heard Tommy say the words. He always knew they had dirt on him, but it was one of those things that Morrigan managed to swallow and stuff way down deep into his psyche. He had written it off so many years ago that his sins of the past were just that—sins of the past. But somehow, someway, he always knew that those sins would return to haunt him—and this was the moment that they finally had.
“You understand what you’re asking?” Morrigan said to Tommy. “You’re asking me to stay dirty.”
Tommy shook his head. “I’m asking you to be smart. Just do whatever they ask of you and this will all go away… eventually.”
“It never goes away. You give those kinds of guys a taste of anything, they always come back for more.”
Tommy got down on one knee in front of his brother. “John,” he said, “they will kill you, me, your ex-wife, and anybody you care about if we don’t play their game. It’s as simple as that, John. Simple as that…”
The Dark Path Page 14
