Lawyers, Guns and Money

by Bob Mayer

  “Walk away,” the guy advised Kane.

  “You’re not from around here,” Kane centered the gun on him. “Texas?”

  “I’m from a much nicer place.” The man smiled. “You going to shoot me? Bring the cops here?” He held his hands wide. The movement opened his jacket and revealed a very large knife in a sheath underneath his right shoulder, a gun under the left. “Your call. I’d recommend the walking away.”

  Kane holstered the forty-five. And held his ground. “You’re one of Yazzie’s brothers?”

  The man straightened with pride. “We are the Beesh Ashiike.”

  “That doesn’t translate well here.”

  “The Hard Flint Boys,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand. You are Kane?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Johnson.”

  “Seriously?” Kane said.

  In reply, Johnson pulled his knife and came forward with it at the ready, blade down in his right hand. The knife was impressive, a Bowie, the blade ten inches long. It had a thick heft on the spine, razor sharp edge on the business side.

  Kane drew his Fairbairn commando knife from the small of his back. His blade was less than half of the other guy’s, narrower, and double edged.

  “Blade on blade,” Johnson said. “The old way.”

  Johnson slashed, a feint to get a feel for his opponent. Kane easily dodged. The space they were dueling in was narrow, five feet wide, with booth doors on either side. Not much room to maneuver.

  Another angled slash, from Johnson’s upper right down low left. This was closer, the tip of the big knife barely missing Kane’s chest as he spread his arms wide to avoid getting cut. Echoes of bayonet training at West Point floated in a part of Kane’s brain that was detached from what was happening in real time: there are only two types of bayonet fighters: the quick and the dead.

  Kane took a step back.

  “You can still run,” Johnson suggested as he spun the knife in his hand, reversing it to blade up in his fist. He came at Kane with a low strike, upward, aiming to gut Kane.

  Kane dropped to the floor as he spun his body, left leg lashing out as the tip of the Bowie nipped the hair on the top of his forehead. His boot hit Johnson on the side of his right knee, toe sliding behind it. Kane slammed into the floor, continuing in a roll and hooking Johnson’s leg, pulling the knee forward, causing him to lose his stance.

  As Johnson struggled to regain balance with his arms, Kane jabbed upward with the Fairbairn, point driving into the thigh on the interior, severing the femoral. Kane pulled the blade back as fast as he’d struck. Warm blood surged forth, soaking Kane’s arm. Kane rolled to the left, hitting the wall, then scrambling backward with his feet, knife raised in a defensive posture.

  It wasn’t needed as Johnson was momentarily stunned. He stared at the blood pulsing out of his leg in disbelief. Kane got to his feet.

  Johnson wasn’t stupid. He dropped the Bowie and clamped both hands over the wound attempting to stop the bleeding. Went to his knees as thick red flowed around his hands. Johnson stared at him, the realization of impending death subsuming all other thoughts and emotions.

  “Why did you kill Selkis?” Kane asked.

  All wasn’t totally subsumed though as Johnson let go of the wound with his right hand and grabbed the Bowie. He slashed at Kane’s legs, the effort causing more blood to pump and quicken the inevitable.

  “Why kill Selkis?” Kane repeated.

  Still on his knees, Johnson dropped the knife. He raised both bloody hands in supplication. He whispered something in Navajo. Kane, the former altar boy, recognized a prayer when he heard it.

  Then he died, arms dropping, still on his knees, his head slumping forward onto his chest, then the upper body teetering until his forehead was on the stained floor. A profane position to end in.

  Kane knelt next to him, avoiding the spreading pool of blood. He used the point of the Fairbairn to push open one side of the jacket, exposing the pistol in a holster, then the other side, revealing the leather shoulder sheath for the Bowie. And a Motorola Pageboy II pager clipped on the left side of his belt.

  Kane snatched it off. Searched for a wallet but came up empty other than several crisp hundred-dollar bills which he left. He grabbed the satchel and tossed it over his shoulder. Kane stood, then paused. He reached down and tipped the body over, rolling Johnson onto his back, his dead eyes staring upward.

  Kane retraced his steps, out of the peep show room. Into the corridor and back to Selkis’ office. The producer’s skin was pale, bled out; head lolled back, his shirt soaked with blood. He was sitting in a pool of it and there was a steady drip-drip-drip as it soaked through the leather and onto the floor.

  Kane checked the desktop but it was clear. The deep drawer on the right side was open and empty, the lock broken. Kane took a moment to look in the satchel: a half-dozen film cases, the same design as the ones that had been in Damon’s factory.

  He looked about the dingy office, briefly wondered if Selkis had ever imagined this would be the place where he died. Kane shut down the extraneous mental meandering and left.

  9

  Saturday Late Afternoon,

  6 August 1977

  TOWER ONE, WORLD TRADE CENTER, MANHATTAN

  “What happened to Selkis?” Toni asked as Kane walked into her office. She had a glass in hand and was standing next to a narrow window, Manhattan spread out behind her, the late afternoon sun casting long skyscraper shadows west to east across the island.

  “He’s dead.” Kane sat at the table. He wore the grey t-shirt, having tossed the blood-stained denim shirt in a dumpster. There was dried blood underneath his fingernails, the quick scrub in a restroom inadequate. He put the satchel with the film canisters on the seat next to him.

  “Where did you catch the cab?” Kane asked. “Right in front of the place?”

  “No. I had to go to Forty-Fifth. Dead how?”

  “He got his throat slit,” Kane said.

  “Who killed him? Why?” Toni walked over, putting the empty hand out to steady herself, the other still holding the drink as she sat.

  Kane placed the pager on the desk.

  “Yazzie?” Toni asked. “What happened? Why would he kill Selkis? Where is he? What’s going on, Will?”

  “It wasn’t Yazzie,” Kane said. “But one of his people. I got that off him.”

  Toni was still for a moment. “Where is the guy?”

  “We fought and he ran off,” Kane said. “But not before I got that.”

  “Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Toni downed the rest of the glass, went over the bar and filled it. She glanced at Kane; eyebrow raised in question.

  “No, thanks. I don’t suppose Yazzie left a way to get hold of him with Mrs. Ruiz? His pager number?”

  Toni shook her head. “No.” She went to her desk and sat down. “Why?” It was obvious her question wasn’t connected to Kane’s.

  “Why what?”

  “Why kill Selkis?”

  “Because he knew something,” Kane said. “I will give Yazzie that. These things,” he indicated the pager, “allow them to respond fast.”

  “What could Selkis have known?”

  The motorcycle ride from Times Square had given Kane time to grasp this twist. “Selkis knew about the connection between your father and Crawford.”

  Toni stared at him. “What?”

  “’There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact’,” Kane quoted Morticia quoting Sherlock Holmes. “We’ve been wondering why the bomb on the boat and not something simpler? To kill me. And kill Crawford.”

  “How is Crawford connected to my father?”

  “That I don’t know yet, but the obvious fact is the bomb was planted to kill both of us. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “How is Crawford involved with the IRA?” Toni asked.

  “He’s probably not,” Kane said. “The attack was set up by your fat
her. Crawford is tied to him. Your father is a smart man. He saw a way to take care of two problems at the same time.”

  “I’m not tracking,” Toni said.

  “You don’t want to track, Toni,” Kane said. He walked to the front of her desk, put both hands on it and leaned forward, meeting her eyes. “Betrayal, Toni. It’s the worst thing someone can do. Your father did it in ’67 when he made the deal with Damon. Betrayed his oath of office. Once you do something like that, it becomes easier and easier. How many crooks has he gotten off since then? People he knew were guilty?”

  Toni couldn’t meet his gaze. Nor did she say anything.

  Kane lifted his hands and went to his usual chair. Sat down, rubbed his eyes. “Did you know your father was buying up property on the west side? Land that Westway would need? And adjacent property? So was Damon. The map was on the back of one of the boards in the conference room.”

  “No.”

  “That property cost a lot of money. The estimate I’ve gotten is fifteen to twenty million. Did they get the money from your mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Toni’s voice was barely audible. “No. She wouldn’t have given it to him. She’s not worth anywhere near that much.”

  “You think he had that lying around at the firm?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps Damon had it in his back pocket?”

  “No.”

  “Right,” Kane said. “Even if your mother could have, Damon and your father wouldn’t do that. Because then it could be tracked. Accounted for. Taxed. You’re the lawyer. Figure it out. You told me that’s what Selkis did with his films. Ran Crawford’s money through them. A tax break. But what about money laundering?”

  Toni put a hand up, as if to get Kane to stop, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Crawford was your father’s money man. Probably Damon’s, too.”

  “You don’t know that for certain.”

  “Come on, Toni.” Kane indicated the pager. “Do you know how this works?”

  Toni didn’t look at it. She was staring out over Manhattan, but not really seeing anything. Kane examined the Pageboy II. At the top on the right was a jack for headphones and a scroll on the left labeled volume. Below the hole of the headphone jack was a button. He pressed it and a double tone sounded, then Crawford’s voice.

  That drew Toni back to the room. “What was that?”

  “Navajo,” Kane said. “That was Crawford ordering Johnson to kill Selkis.

  “’Navajo’?”

  “Code talkers,” Kane clipped the pager on his belt on the right side.

  “What’s in the bag?” Toni asked.

  “Films the guy took from Selkis’ office,” Kane said. He’d checked the labels. “They’re from Damon. I recognize one. Tammy. She was the girl Damon used in the apartment on Gramercy before Sarah.”

  “Who?”

  Kane remembered that Toni didn’t know her real name. “Farrah. The girl you hooked me up with. Remember her? The girl before her was Tammy. Damon told Farrah that he’d let her go in another six months. Just like he had Tammy. Except the only place Tammy went to was the factory on the top floor of the Nabisco building.” Kane tapped the bag. “I’ve seen part of it. Damon’s Trinity took her. Tied her to a table. Tortured her. Raped her. And eventually, killed her. I’m assuming the other films are of the same vein.”

  “He showed me one.” Toni admitted what she knew Kane already knew. “To threaten me.”

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “There’s six films.” Kane gave it a few seconds but Toni didn’t reply. “The question is, how did Johnson know the films were there? And why did he take them?” He didn’t add that Toni had been followed to Selkis’ secondary office. He answered his questions. “They’re all connected. Crawford. Damon. Your father.”

  “Father—” Toni began but nothing further was said.

  “Did Ted ever talk to you about the honor code?”

  Toni blinked at the abrupt shift in topic. “What?”

  “Did he ever talk to you about the honor code at West Point?” Kane asked. When she didn’t reply, he continued. “We spent a lot of time discussing it. Arguing about it, actually because it was one area where Ted and I disagreed. ‘A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.’ Seems pretty basic. Ted thought it was a good thing, but I wasn’t a big fan. I didn’t understand why we needed one. I figured a person was either honorable or not long before they came to West Point. All the code did was make the liars and cheaters and thieves hide what they’re doing or place it on hold for four years.” Kane put a hand on his chest. “It’s either in here or it isn’t. I don’t know if someone is born with honor or grows up to learn it. Maybe a bit of both. My dad’s a shit in many ways, but I always knew I could count on him in the crunch. All of us kids did. His anger would make us pay, but he always anted up via actions when it was needed.”

  Toni turned her seat once more to face the window as if that would hide her from Kane’s words.

  “I went to West Point to get away from my dad’s anger,” Kane said. “Ted went there because he wanted to get away from something else in your father. I never truly understood what it was until today. Ted couldn’t trust him. On some gut, instinctual level, Ted sensed that. It’s why he rebelled against your father’s plan for him. It’s why he clung to the honor code. To the sense of duty, we were shaped with at the Academy. Far more than I ever could, Ted embodied the best of Duty, Honor and Country.”

  Toni gave a deep gasp and her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

  Kane remained in the chair. “When the Civil War was starting, Ulysses Grant said something that has always stuck with me, especially given how many West Pointers who’d sworn an oath to the United States went to fight for the Confederacy: ‘There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party’.” Kane stood. He picked up the paper bag. “I know where I’m ranked. If Yazzie contacts you, tell him he can page me. If you hear from your father, tell him I’m coming for him. ”

  He left.

  10

  Saturday Evening,

  6 August 1977

  RIVERDALE, THE BRONX

  “This might not be such a good idea,” Conner said to Kane.

  They were on the Van Cortlandt Park side of Broadway in the northwest Bronx. Conner had been waiting next to his car for Kane to come down from the elevated subway. Behind them in the darkness, amongst the trees at the south end of the park, was a dilapidated stadium and abandoned swimming pool, victims of city cutbacks. The large open plain called the Flats was a couple hundred yards to the north. Conner’s personal vehicle, a red 1970 Chevy Nova that had seen better days, was illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant. Conner wore his cheap suit, no tie, a ring of sweat around the collar.

  “I’m sure it’s not.” Kane could smell the booze wafting off his uncle.

  “Yeah,” Conner said. “I think—”

  Kane pulled an envelope out of the cargo pocket of his pants. Held it out to his uncle. “Six thousand.”

  Conner instinctively reached for it, but stopped short. “I can’t take that, Will. I mean—”

  “Don’t worry,” Kane said. “It’s not my money. It’s a bad guy’s money and he’s not going to miss it.”

  Conner took the envelope and slid it inside his jacket. “Thanks.” But he hesitated, looking under the elevated tracks, across the street, with trepidation.

  “Come on,” Kane said. He led the way, crossing Broadway. Just above was the rattle of the #1 train Kane had been on, pulling out of the northern terminus at 242nd Street and returning south toward Manhattan. The elevated subway was a contradiction in terms but a reality of the train system in the outer boroughs. The #1 tracks centipeded from here, south through the Bronx, on a bridge across the Harlem River into Manhattan and only descended below ground after the Dyckman Street Exit in the Fort George neighborhood, above Harlem.

  “I never foun
d the rubber el you told me about,” Kane said as they passed one of the stanchions holding up the tracks, trying to get Conner to wind it down a notch.

  “I thought it might make you calmer for your driver’s test,” Conner said as they stepped over trash lying in the gutter and passed between two parked cars, NO RADIO cardboard signs displayed in the windshields. The rubber el was an urban legend told to many an anxious beginning driver negotiating a street like Broadway straddled by the elevated subway that one of the stanchions wasn’t iron but rubber.

  “It was nice of you to help me learn to drive,” Kane acknowledged.

  “All I did was sit there,” Conner said. “Your dad was a little nuts about you riding the clutch so your mom asked me.”

  Kelly’s was dimly lit. The windows were tinted green and covered with posters advertising singers, bands and rallies, many featuring the Irish national flag. The sound of voices raised in drunken revelry and loud music echoed out of the brick walled tavern. It used to be a garage for horses and carriages and been converted to a tavern early in the century. The name, Kelly’s Tavern, was painted on a large board extending on a pole over the door with a shamrock between the words.

  Conner paused before the door, on the edge of the sidewalk. “Nathan called me this afternoon.”

  Kane waited.

  Conner turned to face his nephew. “Why do you want to know about bodies getting swept out to sea?”

  “Research,” Kane said. “That’s part of my job. Find out things for people. I’ve learned it’s best sometimes not to ask why.”

  “Toni wants to know?” Conner asked, assuming he was on a job from her.

  Kane took his uncle’s arm and pulled him away from the door, farther down the sidewalk to the pool of light underneath one of the few functioning street lights, adjacent to a dark alley on the north side of the tavern. “The reason we’re here is I’m trying to figure this IRA thing out. I’m involved because someone put a bomb on a boat I was on the other night. I asked Nathan because I was wondering if the boat had blown up, whether my corpse would have been swept out to sea. Okay?”