Lawyers, Guns and Money

by Bob Mayer

Thao slid an omelet onto a plate and added it to a couple on the serving wall. “You do not have one already?”

  “Remember what Merrick used to say,” Kane reminded Thao. “When you’re up to your ass in alligators it’s hard to remember you were in there to drain the swamp.”

  “Sergeant Merrick also believes The Magnificent Seven is a good template for mission planning,” Thao said.

  MARINA, BATTERY PARK, MANHATTAN

  The water was calm and it was a smog-hazy sunny day. Under other circumstances this might be a leisurely cruise through garbage infested and polluted Upper New York Bay, as the boat cast off and headed south toward the Verrazano Narrows. Kane wondered if there was some sort of irony that it was the same one he’d been piloting when this mess began.

  The Hard Flint Boys negated the pleasure crew aspect, once more reminding Kane of Captain Kidd and pirates. Yazzie had brought his step brothers. One was at the controls of the boat, two others in the rear cabin, where one was by the sliding door to the dive deck and the other standing behind the blindfolded, naked old man tied to a chair. Where the sixth one was, Kane had no idea.

  Judge Charles Edward Clark’s chest was sunken, covered with scraggly gray hairs. His arms were narrow and the skin drooped; he’d aged more than a decade since the film, probably a few years in the last couple of hours. There were several cinder blocks and loose rope next to the chair.

  Kane took one look at that scenario, turned around and went up to the forward deck.

  Yazzie joined him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you crazy? Did you ask him where Marcelle is?”

  “Of course,” Yazzie said. “He said he didn’t know. I’m preparing to ask with more firmness.”

  “He’s a federal judge,” Kane said.

  “We brought him here unconscious,” Yazzie said. “He has no clue who we are.”

  “He might have a hint since you’re asking about Thomas Marcelle,” Kane pointed out.

  Yazzie shrugged. “Marcelle has a lot of enemies. For all Clark knows, we’re the IRA. You seem pretty big on that angle.”

  “You need to work on your accent then.”

  “I’m not worried about this guy,” Yazzie said.

  “Because you have a former federal prosecutor on your team?”

  “Because Marcelle is dirty and Clark’s connected to him.”

  Kane couldn’t argue with that, although he didn’t point out the obvious parallel with Crawford.

  Yazzie explained the scenario. “Clark knows we’re on a boat. Soon he won’t hear any sounds of the city or land. Just the water. That will scare him.”

  “I get it,” Kane said. Ellis and Liberty Islands were to the right while Governors Island was to the port side. Numerous anecdotes bubbled up, but Kane smushed them down. He stared at the statue, imagining what three TOW missiles could do to it. Which reminded him of Caitlyn and for a moment he was off balance.

  “Did Clark give you anything?” Kane asked.

  “He acknowledged knowing Thomas Marcelle. He did not acknowledge that they had any sort of relationship, but he was lying.”

  “We know that.”

  “Yes, but it gave me a baseline to know his tell when he’s lying,” Yazzie said.

  “Somehow I think you did more than crawl through tunnels and speak Navajo in ‘Nam,” Kane said.

  Yazzie ignored that. “He says it’s been months since he last spoke with Marcelle and that it was over some legal matter. He was lying about that.”

  “Based on your baseline?”

  Yazzie didn’t reply.

  Kane nodded to the port side as they plowed through Upper Bay. “Elvis left from there.”

  “What?” Yazzie was lost.

  “Brooklyn Army Terminal,” Kane explained. “Built at the end of World War I. During the Second War, over three million troops departed through it. Then later, Elvis for his Germany stint. Just think, for some of those leaving, it was the last time they were on American soil.”

  “Are you trying to distract me?” Yazzie asked.

  “No. I’m just full of useless information and weird things trigger it,” Kane said.

  Yazzie was, as Kane had told Thao, mission focused.

  “When we get to Marcelle,” Kane said, “you’ve got to give me a chance to talk to him. He made contact with the Swords to set me up, so he knows something about them.”

  “After I get what I’m after,” Yazzie said, “you can talk to him. But in the end, Marcelle must pay.”

  They passed under the bridge. The water spread out as they entered Lower Bay. A container ship went by, going in the opposite direction.

  “Let’s get the truth from Clark,” Yazzie said as the boat angled to the southeast and open ocean.

  Kane followed the Navajo to the aft cabin.

  Kane waited by the bed as Yazzie went to the judge.

  “Thomas Marcelle,” Yazzie said. “Tell us where he is.”

  “You’ve assaulted a federal judge,” Clark threatened. But he’d obviously had some time to think, because he was past the denial and anger stages of interrogation and into bargaining. “If you let me go now, I’ll forget all about it. I don’t know who you people are and we leave it like that. Nobody got hurt.”

  “Why do you think someone’s going to get hurt?” Yazzie asked.

  “I don’t know what Marcelle was into—” Clark began but Yazzie interrupted.

  “Wasn’t he into you? Or were you into him? I never quite understood how that worked. Nor do I care to.”

  Clark blustered as much as a naked man tied to a chair could: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Kane spoke. “We’ve got film of the two of you together.”

  Clark’s head swung toward him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the only friend you have on this boat,” Kane said. “You and Marcelle were lovers. Still might be. I saw the film.”

  “What are you talking about?” Clark tried to maintain his crumbling bluster. “What film?”

  “Sean Damon’s film,” Kane said. “The one he used against Marcelle for the sweetheart deal in 1967. You knew about it. Marcelle flipped partly to protect you.”

  “Who are you people?” Clark’s voice cracked.

  “Do you want us to release the film?” Kane asked.

  “You said you were the only friend I have on this boat,” Clark said. “You’re not sounding like it.”

  Kane pressed. “I’ve got a contact at the Post. They’d love to get their hands on the film. Probably put a still from it on the front page.”

  “I don’t know where Marcelle is. I swear.”

  Yazzie jumped in. “Have you talked to him in the past week?”

  Clark’s shoulder’s slumped. He nodded. “He called me Friday morning. He was scared. He said people were after him. I’ve never known him to be scared. Even with Damon, he wasn’t scared. He was practical.”

  Yazzie had walked behind Clark. He leaned over and spoke close to his ear. “I’m the one after Marcelle. He has every reason to be scared. So do you. You’ve got two choices. Tell us where he is or we tie your chair to cinderblocks and send you to the bottom. We’re far enough out at sea now.”

  “I don’t know where Marcelle is. I swear!” There was dampness in the blindfold as Clark sniffled. He was past bargaining and into the depressing reality of his situation.

  “Who would?” Yazzie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re lying,” Yazzie said.

  “He called you,” Kane pointed out. “You couldn’t help him, but who could?”

  Clark was shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re lying,” Yazzie repeated.

  “The Gentleman Bankers?” Kane asked.

  Clark’s head snapped in his direction.

  “What? Who?” But the old man was rattled.

  “The Gentleman Bankers,” Kane said. “Are they hiding him?”

  “Let’s toss him overboard,” Y
azzie said grabbing one arm of the chair and his brother took the other. They lifted it up.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  Yazzie and his brother put the chair down.

  “Yes,” Clark said. “Yes. They’re hiding him. He’s one of us. We have to protect our own. And if I disappear, they’ll search for me. They will find you. They’re powerful. They’ll crush you.”

  “Not likely,” Yazzie said. “And even if they manage, won’t do you much good will it?”

  “Would they trade?” Kane asked.

  “’Trade’?” Clark said.

  “Marcelle’s radioactive,” Kane said. “He’s always been linked to Damon and now things are coming out about that relationship that Marcelle can’t come back from. Really bad things. Rapes. Murders. I’ve got those films. Marcelle is done. You’re not. We’ll be taking a liability off their hands and giving back an asset. Would the Gentleman Bankers trade you for him?”

  Clark was silent, on the edge of depression and acceptance. Kane looked over him at Yazzie who gave a grudging nod of approval at the offer.

  Kane took a step closer to the judge and lowered his voice. “You’re weighing your emotions against your intellect.” Kane kept dropping the volume of his voice as he spoke. “Your feelings for Marcelle. I knew his son, Ted.”

  Clark’s head shifted, trying to hear. Kane’s voice descended to a harsh whisper only Clark could hear. It took only a few seconds for Kane to impart what needed to be said. When he was done, he straightened.

  Clark was shaking his head. “No. He wouldn’t have. Not Tom. Not to his son.”

  “Think about the Gentleman Banker parties,” Kane said. “The ones that are never held in the same place.”

  “I don’t go to those,” Clark snapped.

  Kane glanced at Yazzie who gave him a quizzical look but nodded at the truth of that statement.

  “But Marcelle does, doesn’t he?” Kane put more pressure on the lever. “You loved him, still love him probably, don’t you? But he doesn’t return it. He can’t. That’s who he is. That’s who his son, Ted, knew he was.”

  “No.” But Clark’s voice indicated the break.

  “Will they trade Marcelle for you?” Kane asked.

  “Maybe.” Clark settled on acceptance. He firmed up, diving for the opening. “Yes.”

  “Is Roy Cohn a member?”

  “Cohn? What’s he have to do with this?”

  “Nothing,” Kane said. “But is he a member? So I can contact the Bankers through him.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” Kane said.

  “Tom didn’t do anything wrong,” Clark said, more to himself.

  Yazzie and Kane exchanged a glance. Kane nodded toward the hatch. They went to the forward deck. Yazzie signaled to his man in the cockpit to turn the boat around.

  “Not bad,” Yazzie said. “You had some cards up your sleeve.”

  “Don’t we both?”

  LENOX HILL, MANHATTAN

  “As I said on the phone,” Kane said to Roy Cohn. “Judge Clark for Thomas Marcelle.”

  “I checked into you,” Cohn said. “I know about your family. Your father. Your mother. Their little house in the Bronx. His pension with the Sanitation Department. How’d he like to lose that?”

  “If you really checked,” Kane said with forced patience, “you know I’m not close to my family.”

  “Everyone is close to their family,” Cohn said, “even when they say they aren’t.”

  “I’m here to make a deal,” Kane said. “Not listen to threats.”

  “I don’t like you,” Cohn said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Kohn was in the same bathrobe. The bedroom/office smelled worse than Kane remembered; stale and sickly. A plate with leftovers of something was on the edge of the desk, a fly buzzing lazily around it. A window air conditioner was running somewhere in the background but making little headway.

  “I got an idea who you’re fronting for,” Cohn said. “Somebody with DC connections. I can tell when I’m getting the blind. I haven’t gotten a call about the money yet for the convention center.”

  “This is a different matter,” Kane said. “A bit more urgent. Who has the authority to trade Marcelle for Clark?”

  “’Who has the authority’?” Cohn laughed. “You’re looking at him. Throw in a transaction fee. Let’s see ten grand cash when you bring Clark.”

  “Sure,” Kane said.

  “You’re not a very good negotiator,” Cohn pointed out.

  “I’ve been told that.”

  HUNTS POINT, BRONX

  “You could have given him his clothes back,” Kane said to Yazzie as a naked Judge Clark shuffled over the cobblestones to a white van, passing two men who were practically carrying a squirming, blindfolded and gagged, Thomas Marcelle between them.

  He wasn’t naked.

  “I don’t like these people,” Yazzie said.

  “Judges? Lawyers?”

  Yazzie ignored him.

  Marcelle was tossed in the back of the car where two Flint Boys secured him. Yazzie drove off without a glance behind. He drove through the wasteland of the South Bronx, negotiating abandoned and torched cars. Most of the apartment buildings on either side were burnt out husks.

  Cohn had set up the swap with ruthless efficiency after Kane passed across the money supplied from Yazzie’s leather satchel. Cohn had given the time and location in the Bronx to make the exchange.

  Kane didn’t say anything as they rode through a section of the city the rest of the country viewed as the epitome of the blight that was New York City. Kane had different memories of these streets from twenty years ago. His parents had lived here before migrating to slightly greener pastures of the north Bronx.

  They passed underneath the Bruckner Expressway and entered Hunts Point. Hookers prowled in the afternoon shadows along with drug dealers and wanna-be gangsters mingled with real ones. Yazzie didn’t continue to the Point where Fulton Fish Market bustled with business despite the decay. He turned into the large wastewater treatment plant. Through it, past a couple of completely disinterested sewage workers, to an abandoned warehouse.

  The sound of the wastewater plant next door was a throb of engines and pumps running, loud enough to drown out anything short of automatic weapons fire. The last of Yazzie’s brothers was waiting for them and slid shut the large door they’d come through, leaving a bleak twilight of a few naked bulbs hanging on wires from the rafters.

  Kane looked about, checking to see if there were any signs that this was Yazzie’s patrol base, but the interior held only broken crates and scattered debris; no sign of long-term occupation. All five of the Flint Boys were here, in addition to Yazzie.

  One of Yazzie’s men dragged Thomas Marcelle out of the car and tumbled him to the dirty floor. The blindfold was ripped off and gag removed, but Marcelle didn’t get to his feet. He lay on his back, blinking, disoriented.

  He no longer looked like the man who ruled the top floor of the Broadway-Chambers Building, overlooking City Hall. His suit jacket was missing, his shirt was dirty and his shoes scuffed. He slowly sat up, looking around. His eyes locked onto Kane.

  “William.” Marcelle tried to smile as he got to his feet. “Good to see you, William.” He took a shuffling step toward Kane, but Yazzie stepped between.

  “I’m from Boss Crawford.”

  Marcelle reversed that step. “It’s business, just business.”

  “Where are the deeds?” Yazzie asked.

  Marcelle shifted gears and faced the Navajo. “You’re going to kill me right after I tell you that. I’ve heard about his boys. Did he adopt all of you? What is it? Ten little Indians?”

  “All I care about are the deeds,” Yazzie said.

  “You’re not a good liar,” Marcelle said. “I’ve worked with people who believed their own lies, they were so good. You’re not good at all. I’ve got no incentive to give up those deeds.”

  Yazzie shook hi
s head. “You misunderstand the situation. This is not a negotiation. This is you determining how much suffering you wish to undergo before you inevitably tell us what we will know.”

  One of the Navajo behind Marcelle drew a Bowie knife. Marcelle looked over his shoulder. “No need for that.”

  “You’ve got nothing to gain by not giving me the deeds,” Yazzie continued, “and much to lose.”

  “We can make a deal,” Marcelle said. “I’ve got information on people that’s worth a lot of money. Powerful people.”

  Kane spoke. “The Irish. Do you know where they’re hiding?”

  “’Irish’?” Marcelle badly feigned ignorance.

  “The ones you paid to kill me and Crawford and an actress whose name you probably don’t even know.”

  “It was just business,” Marcelle repeated. He screamed as the man with the Bowie knife slashed, the tip slicing through the dirty shirt sleeve and leaving a thin red line. He stumbled into Yazzie who shoved him away. The other Flint Boy drew a knife, a Marine Ka-bar, the edge of the blade honed to a silver razor’s edge against the black of the shaft. He flanked Marcelle opposite Bowie.

  “The deeds,” Yazzie said.

  Marcelle’s eyes were darting back and forth, trying to track both knife men. “We’ve got to work out a deal for my safety. Then I’ll tell you where they are.”

  “This is not a negotiation,” Yazzie repeated.

  “I’ll help you,” Kane said to Marcelle.

  Yazzie turned toward him, face expressionless. Then he gave a succinct nod.

  Kane stepped up to his best friend’s father. “You scared Ted. He told me that in Beast. The first time I met you that summer, when you came to visit with your wife and Toni, you scared me. You were larger than life. Were.”

  A muscle in Marcelle’s jaw twitched.

  “You’ve done too much business with the wrong people,” Kane said. “It’s over. Where are the Irish? Where did you meet them?”

  “I never met them,” Marcelle said. “They called me.”

  “That’s how you arranged to kill me? Over the phone?” Kane shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re not that stupid.”

  The anger was overwhelming the situation for Marcelle. “Walsh called and gave me a number. I went to a pay phone at a certain time and they called. No, I’m not that stupid, William.”