Shamrock Alley Read online

  SEVEN-THIRTY THANKSGIVING MORNING, AND THE TEMPERature registered at just under forty degrees. The sun was visible only when it passed between the patches of iron-colored clouds that hugged the skyline. Already there was movement in the Mavio home. In the kitchen, Katie hovered around the table like a bee to a flower, filling two large plates with the cookies she’d been baking for the past two days. Humming under her breath, she was a young girl once again, helping her mother prepare food for the holidays. On the counter beside the sink, a small television was turned to NBC, though the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade would not begin for another hour and a half.

  In the bedroom, John stirred and rolled over, half-awake. He could hear his wife’s humming, could hear the sounds of the television set coming down the hall. Outside, he could even make out the early-morning calls of kids out in the street, marching in a parade of their own. Their apartment was situated in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Italians—particularly New York Italians—lived for the holidays. Any annual celebration was an excuse to unload tremendous amounts of food on willing and eager relatives, to clutter kitchens with baked sweets and fresh bread still warm from the bakery. As a child, John had shared a few Thanksgivings with distant relatives, but usually it was just he and his father.

  Katie came into the room, yanked open the closet, and stood there with one hand on her hip and her other hand pressed to the swell of her belly. Without looking in her husband’s direction, she said, “Wake up, wake up, wake up. Your day off and you’re going to spend it in bed?”

  “I was dreaming. What time is it?”

  “Morning.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed. Cookies smell good.”

  “Get up, and get ready,” she told him. “We have some driving to do today.”

  He staggered out of bed at Katie’s insistence, was practically shoved into the shower and thrust into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. And although some part of his mind was already interrogating Douglas Clifton, he felt mostly at peace with himself and ready to shake his job from him, at least for several hours. It would be nice—pleasant drive to Katie’s parents’ house, taking in the scenery, spending some time with his wife. To him, it seemed that Katie’s pregnancy had progressed in a series of hasty snapshots. Like an absent father sent photographs of his child, surprised at how much the child has grown, he sometimes found himself looking at Katie when she didn’t know she was being observed, just capturing her in his mind. There was a rejection he sometimes felt deep within himself when staring at her in this way. As if it was her feeling of rejection, radiating so strong that it felt like his own. In a perfect world time would mean nothing, work would be nonessential, and he could spent an eternity staring at his wife.

  By eight o’clock there was a strong wind blowing against the side of the building, rattling the windows. The streets filled with shade as the sun was again swallowed up by another blind of clouds. While his wife showered and dressed, he sneaked a couple of oatmeal cookies from the prepared trays and watched the television with little interest. Despite the cold weather, he was in a good mood. It had been a while since he’d felt relaxed.

  A chirping sound: his cell phone, still on the nightstand in their bedroom.

  Personal calls were always made to the house, so he knew right away the call was work-related. And his first thought was Kersh. He hurried down the hall and scooped the phone off the nightstand, pressed the green button.

  “Yeah?”

  “John.” A man’s voice—but not Bill Kersh’s. He knew the voice, but it took his brain a couple seconds to place a face to it. “John,” the man repeated, his voice uninflected.

  It was Mickey O’Shay.

  “Yeah, this is John.”

  There was some rustling on the other end of the phone. “Where are you?”

  He uttered an apprehensive laugh and glanced back toward the hallway. Quickly, he moved across the bedroom floor and quietly shut the bedroom door. “At home. This—Mickey?”

  “I want you to meet me in one hour.”

  “Somethin’ wrong?”

  “No,” Mickey said. “I got your money with me now.”

  He thought of the way Mickey O’Shay sat huddled in the front pew of St. Patrick’s Cathedral …

  “Are you kidding me, man?” he said. “I don’t have my end. I told you I’d need at least a day.” He summoned a forced laugh. “You tryin’ to bust my balls here or what?”

  “Forget your end,” Mickey said. “I’ll front it to you.”

  A rapid sinking sensation overcame him; Mickey had left him no wiggle room.

  John breathed heavily into the phone. “The hell you talking about?”

  “It’s yours,” Mickey said. “I’m fronting it. You want it, come get it.”

  “This better not be bullshit,” he told Mickey. “Where you wanna meet?”

  A minute later and he was standing in the hallway, watching Katie wrap the trays of cookies in colored Saran Wrap. Her hair was still wet from the shower, strands of it hanging in her face. He watched her work for some time.

  She looked up, her hands still holding taut a piece of Saran Wrap. The expression on her face suggested he needn’t say anything. “When do you have to leave?” she said.

  As he drove, he glanced around the interior of the car to make sure everything looked presentable and in order. The Camaro was not his; likewise, the license plates and registration did not correspond to his home address. It was a seized vehicle, used for undercover work and assigned to him. The registration was made out to a false last name—Esposito: the same last name John used as an alias on his falsified driver’s license and American Express card. It would be as John Esposito that Mickey O’Shay would come to know him.

  Looking around, he noticed something in the back seat. Hitting a traffic light, he glanced behind him. His father’s wool coat lay folded on the seat, forgotten from his mind after he’d taken it from his father’s house.

  “Goddamn it.”

  He hit the bridge, and there was already traffic. Why the hell Mickey O’Shay wanted to meet in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day was beyond him.

  He glanced at the clock on the Camaro’s console: 8:35. The parade would begin at exactly nine o’clock at 77th Street and Central Park West, and drip slowly down the park until it turned onto Broadway toward Herald Square. The entire event would last roughly three hours, from nine till noon, and John knew from experience that the city would be a madhouse. Mickey’s directions had been to go through the Theater District and wait in his car at the corner of 57th and Ninth. And although the parade would not have trickled down that far by the time he got there, he would essentially be cutting through the parade route, which was cordoned off. Which meant he would have to go down and around Broadway instead of crossing it north of Herald Square.

  Son of a bitch, he thought. There is no way I’m going to make it there in time. No way in the world.

  And Mickey had to know this.

  Either he’s whacked out of his mind, or he’s got something up his sleeve. No one with brains fronts a hundred grand in counterfeit bills to a guy unless he’s your brother.

  The compact bulge of his gun pressed against the small of his back.

  He had been right about the city: straight off the bridge, traffic shuddered to a complete halt. Horns blared, cars edged between other cars and scooted down alleys only to be trapped there moments later. He would have had better luck turning a steamship around in a closet. It occurred to him then that he could probably go up Broadway and flash his badge to gain passage through the parade route, but in the end his instincts warned him away from such an exercise.

  Up ahead, traffic broke off into two directions and he got swept up in one lane, unsure what street he was on. Beside him, the driver of a Honda GR-V gunned his engine. In front, some of the cars inched closer toward an intersection and, just as it looked like there was going to be a break in traffic, a mob of people rushed across the intersection, eliciting
honks and swears and upraised middle fingers. According to the console clock, it was already nine o’clock.

  Uptown, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had begun.

  He could hear music before he ever saw anything. Marching band music: heavy on the drums, heavy on the horns. And finally, when he did see something, it was mostly people and balloons. Handheld balloons, not the massive helium-filled cartoon characters that would soon blot the sky. He moved down an alleyway cluttered with wooden crates and stinking offish, and popped out onto a crowded section of Eighth Avenue. The sounds of snare drums and brass horns and thousands of feet filled the air. He was aware that he was the only person actually walking, actually moving, and that everyone else remained stationary along the cusp of the avenue, peering down the block for a glimpse of the parade. Yet all that was visible was the throng of other spectators.

  He paused to light a cigarette, smoked it down to the ass, then pitched it in the gutter. He was of medium height and had some difficulty peering over the heads of the crowd that had formed along Eighth Avenue. Two uniformed police officers stood in the street, waving their hands to partition the gathering and create a narrow passageway for people to traverse. One block up, Broadway pulsed as the heart of the parade. A clutch of balloons were let go several yards ahead of him and, briefly, he paused to watch them sail up into the sky.

  Scratching at his ears like a flea-bitten dog, he turned and headed east on 57th in the opposite direction of the crowd. Someone slammed into his shoulder but he didn’t lift his head, didn’t look up. Behind him, a bray of trumpets pierced the air.

  Shivering against the cold, vapor billowing from his mouth, Mickey O’Shay moved among the crowd like a ghost unseen.

  It was almost ten o’clock when John parked the Camaro at the corner of 57th and Ninth. He was roughly an hour late, and he felt aggravated as he watched the crowd of people mill down 57th Street. Had he missed him already? This was a horrible place to meet, and now John had his doubts whether or not Mickey had ever planned on showing up at all. That notion only angered him more—the thought of the little son of a bitch calling the shots. Was he somewhere right now, laughing to himself? And then it suddenly occurred to John and the revelation was like an electric shock: he had no idea what was going on. Moreover, he had no idea what was going through Mickey O’Shay’s mind. For seemingly the first time in the two years since he’d been on the Secret Service, he couldn’t think ahead of his target, couldn’t outstep him. Peering through the windshield, he watched the bundled onlookers filter down toward Broadway. With the car shut down, it grew cold; he rubbed his hands together to keep warm. How long should he even sit here and wait?

  Two short taps against the passenger side window. Jerking his head around, he saw O’Shay’s mottled canvas coat and nondescript pants framed within the window. Only the tips of Mickey’s fingers could be seen poking out of the cuffs of his coat.

  John leaned across the passenger seat and popped open the door. Wasting no time, Mickey climbed in and shut the door, bringing with him the thankless stink of cigarette smoke and the bitter cold. Mickey shook his long hand with his fingers and snorted.

  “You’re late,” he muttered. He looked John up and down, as if deciding whether or not he was worth his time.

  “You gotta be kidding me. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s kind of a big parade goin’ on.”

  Mickey had no interest in small talk. That, or he was still feeling John out. He craned his head back and peered at the passenger side mirror. “Too many people here,” Mickey said. “Turn around and pull into that alley on your right.”

  John turned the engine over and rolled the Camaro up the street until he spotted the alleyway Mickey had mentioned.

  “Right here,” Mickey said.

  He spun the wheel and eased the car up a slight incline. The alley ran directly behind Roosevelt Hospital. Mickey told him to stop the car before they pulled out onto the hospital’s tarmac.

  “Yeah, this looks inconspicuous,” John mused, peering in the rearview. “But I’m done driving. What’s the deal, you givin’ me this stuff up front? I’m ready to deal.”

  “You got a problem with trust?” Mickey said. He shifted in his seat, and John caught another whiff of cigarette smoke.

  “Not me,” John said. “Not at all.”

  “I didn’t bring the money,” Mickey said.

  “What are you, yankin’ my chain? You don’t have the money, the hell did you ask me to come out for?”

  “Because,” Mickey said, “cops don’t work holidays.”

  “So now I’m a cop?”

  “Relax,” Mickey said. There was a hint of casualness to his voice—a first for him. “Just wanted to see if you’d show.”

  The smug look on Mickey’s face, coupled with his insouciant tone, made John’s blood boil. An image of Katie standing, dejected and heartbroken, over her trays of homemade cookies flashed across his mind. “You little jerk,” he said, “I had plans with my family, and you’re here wastin’ my goddamn time. I should bang you in the teeth.”

  “So you’re a tough guy,” Mickey said, still relaxed. He was facing front now, not even looking in John’s direction. “I’m shittin’ all over myself.”

  “Get the fuck outta my car.”

  “Take a couple days to get your money together,” Mickey said, “and I’ll call you.”

  “Fuck you and your money.”

  Mickey popped open the passenger door, stepped out into the alley, and let the door slam shut. For a moment, Mickey O’Shay stood just outside John’s car, looking like someone desperately trying to remember something they’d forgotten. Then he dug a pack of cigarettes from his coat, turned, and headed back down the alleyway. John watched him walk away in the rearview mirror, resisting the urge to hop from the car, grab the punk, slam him a few times.

  Because cops don’t work holidays, John thought. Also, cops flash a badge and they’re able to drive right through a parade route. In other words, cops show up on time.

  “Nice start, pal,” he muttered, “but I got your number.”

  Just then his cell phone rang. Eyes still trained on Mickey in the car’s rearview, he answered the phone without looking at it.

  “John,” he said.

  “It’s Bill,” Kersh said. The connection was poor, and he could hardly make out Kersh’s voice. “I hate to spoil your holiday, but I figured you’d want to know …”

  “What is it?” He watched as Mickey slipped onto 57th Street and disappeared among the mob of people. A second after that, and it was like he never existed. “What?” he repeated. A crash of thunder, and it started to rain.

  “It’s Douglas Clifton,” Kersh said.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  EARLY DECEMBER

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TODAY, IT IS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE HELL’S Kitchen as having once been a lush, provincial countryside, its landscape defined not by red-brick tenements and fire-scarred shops, but by countless running streams and burgeoning grasslands. Slowly, over time, the region blossomed under the weight of immigrants fleeing their homelands—the Dutch, Italians, Irish, Germans. The land was fertile and strong, and in the mid-1800s, the Hudson River Railroad became the cornerstone on which a changing society was established. The railroad quickly attracted scores of hopeful immigrants, all hungry for work, all anxious to eke out an existence for themselves and their families in this brave new world. Shortly after the addition of the railroad, Manhattan’s West Side grew rich with industry, providing the foundation for glue factories and distilleries, slaughterhouses and sweatshops. The air, once pure and untouched, was soon tinged with the metallic reek of the abattoirs along West 39th Street—so overwhelming that, in the summer, everything smelled vaguely of blood. Tenements were constructed close together along what some people called Slaughterhouse Row or Abattoir Place, crammed with families that made their livelihood off the very industry that poisoned their lungs a
nd corrupted their spirits. Runoff from the slaughterhouses pooled along the avenues, causing the gutters to swell with blood. Stray dogs lapped up the gore from the streets. Clothing strung out on clotheslines between tenements reeked permanently of slaughter. The West Side breweries combated the stink of the slaughterhouses with the softer, richer scent of barley and yeast—but mingled, the air simply grew more wet and heavy with stink. In the blink of an eye, the grassy fields and freshwater creeks had disappeared. The fresh air had vanished. And by the late-1800s, Hell’s Kitchen had already become what many referred to as the armpit of New York City.

  Crime was always an element in Hell’s Kitchen, but it wasn’t until after the Civil War that the street gangs came to power. As colorful as the smells in the air and the blood in the streets, the gangs of Hell’s Kitchen appeared on the scene like schools of hungry piranhas seeking out a meal. There were the Gorillas, the Tenth Avenue Gang (later known as the Hell’s Kitchen Gang), the Gophers—each well-versed in the art of strong-armed manipulation and schooled in excessive, merciless violence. Of these gangs, the most notorious were the Gophers. The Gophers were shadows, swirling and shifting like devils beneath the hem of a blue-collar neighborhood. Their presence was known and feared by all. Behind them, a river of blood flowed—somehow much darker and more polluted than the foulness left by the slaughterhouses on West 39th Street. And with the passage of years, their trespasses broadened, enabling them to move beyond petty crime and violent murder and to eventually wrap bloody fingers around the throat of New York City politics.

  After World War I, most of Hell’s Kitchen’s traditional gangs all but fell apart under the weight of a new, more complex society. Other nationalities took up residence in the Kitchen, and the ethnicity grew more and more diverse with the passage of each year. Irish and Italians now had to make room for the inrush of Puerto Ricans, Hispanics, and blacks. There were race riots and bitter crimes committed against specific ethnic groups as the district stretched its arms and began to adjust. And despite the growing difference in culture, the residents of Hell’s Kitchen still managed to govern themselves by a strict code of personal ethics. Gangs aside (although sometimes because of such gangs), Hell’s Kitchen remained a reasonably safe, protected place to live. Criminals and the working class alike prided themselves on their personal beliefs which, among others, included both respect and diligence. An unspoken law dictated the way of the streets, and there would be no mercy for anyone who did not abide by such rules. Illegal drugs were kept under strict control by what street gangs remained, and they hardly ever found their way into the hands of the innocent. The penalties dealt out to anyone who tried to compromise the unspoken drug policy were swift and severe.