A Dark and Broken Heart (37 page)

Madigan walked to the door.

“Thank you, Vincent,” Sandià said.

Madigan said nothing. His hand on the door, the door opening, the sense of release, of relief, the letting go of everything, the feeling that he could scream, that he could just run from the building into the street, his heart like a machine, his heart ready to implode, collapse, to just stop in its tracks, his expression blank as he fell to the sidewalk, his life over, everything gone, everything that was anything now meaningless . . .

The weight of his feet as he walked to the elevator. Pushing the button. The sound of the gears and cables. Waiting for Sandià to open the door behind him, to call him back . . .

Vincent . . . just one thing before you go
. . .

The elevator arriving. Stepping inside. His finger on the button, looking back toward the door he had just exited.

His mouth and throat like dust.

His eyes wide, almost disbelieving of the scenario that had just played out before him.

Everything was real, but unreal.

The elevator reached the ground. The doors opened. Passing the guys in the corridor, retrieving his gun, and then there was daylight, and the sound of the world beyond the walls of Sandià’s empire.

Someone said something, Madigan failed to respond, and then he turned back and tried to smile.

The door, the sidewalk, the hundred yards to his car.

All of it in slow-motion while the rest of the world ran at five, ten, twenty times its normal speed.

Opening the door, climbing in, closing the door, his hands on the wheel, his forehead down against his hands. He was screaming inside, but everything was silent.

It was a long time before he started the engine and pulled away.

52
STRAITS OF LOVE AND HATE

M
adigan’s heart didn’t slow until he was a half dozen blocks from Sandià’s place.

He kept thinking about Alex Calvo, Sandià’s nephew. Sandià would be turning the thing over in his mind again and again. He would chew on it until he had it all figured out. Until he
believed
he had it figured out.
Why had Alex not colluded with Valderas? Why had he gone to Sandià and reported Valderas’s betrayal? Because he was already in collusion with someone else, that’s why. And why would Alex want to overthrow Sandià in the first place? Simple . . . The same reasons as everyone else—money, greed, power, control, jealousy
.

Sandià would now no longer be saddened by the death of Alex Calvo in the robbery that Tuesday morning. He would no longer be grieving for his nephew. He would be considering the fact that someone had simply done his dirty work for him. Calvo had become the renegade, the traitor, and now he was no longer a threat. But the other cop? The fourth man? Was he the real traitor? This was the seed of doubt that Madigan hoped to have planted in Sandià’s mind, and Sandià—by his nature—would now want nothing more than to challenge this man.

Madigan just hoped he could make it back in time.

He stopped at a car rental place on East 118th, took a nondescript compact, and gave them an extra fifty bucks to look after his own car until he returned. He showed them his ID and they didn’t ask questions.

Madigan drove back to Paladino and parked up a half block from the tenement entranceway. If everything moved as he hoped it would, then it wouldn’t be long before someone showed up. The only question was who, and whether or not Madigan would recognize them. It could be any cop from any precinct in the city. If he came away empty-handed on the ID, then he was screwed.

Ten thirty and Madigan was already on a knife-edge. He needed to take a piss. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t go anywhere. He wished he had a plastic bottle or some such in the car, something he could piss into and get rid of later.

Self-doubt was the foremost consideration in his mind. He had misjudged everything and everyone. He had talked himself into an inescapable trap of his own devising.

He put the radio on low. He listened to some jazz station out of Long Island.

The music merely served to irritate him further, and he switched it off again.

He thought about Isabella. He thought about Melissa. He wondered what he would do with them if this thing ever ended. Maybe that would be a decision he wouldn’t have to make. Maybe they would both be dead. Maybe they would make it through, and he would be dead. He thought about everything that had happened since he and Bernie Tomczak had met in an alleyway only five days earlier. Five days, and everything had changed. The most important five days of his life. No way back, no way over, no way around this. It was straight ahead now, straight ahead and through whatever got in the way. He would either overcome it and see the other side, or it would stop him dead. Literally.

And if he did make it through, what then? Where would he go? Sure as hell he couldn’t stay in the department. Or could he? Could he actually pull something like that off? If he dealt with Walsh, with IA, with his own stats, his record, could he just hang in there, make twenty-five, take a pension? He’d be forty-eight, not so old, a good twenty, thirty years ahead of him. The money from the Sandià robbery would be gone. That had to vanish someplace soon. That had to be the incontrovertible evidence to put someone other than himself in that house on Tuesday morning, to put someone else behind the guns that killed Sandià’s crew. Could he deal with that? Could he live a life somewhere on a PD pension?

Madigan glanced in the rearview. He recalled that moment when he’d pulled over in front of the chop suey joint. After the meeting with Landry and Williams and Fulton. He’d looked at that same reflection. From how many mirrors in how many restrooms in how many bars had that worn-out face looked back at him? Too many? Or too few? Maybe he’d just lock himself in a motel room and drink himself to death. Maybe that would be simpler. He
remembered that thought. He remembered many such thoughts. Seemed the world was full of dark places. He’d seen most of them, lived in a few, and even the ones he’d never visited felt somehow familiar.

Nothing was certain. Nothing was dependable.

Madigan watched the front of the building and he prayed that someone would show up.

By noon he couldn’t bear it. His nerves were shredded. His bladder was ready to rupture. He’d chained a half dozen smokes, felt nauseous and light-headed. He could sit there for the rest of the day and no one could show up. What if Sandià’s man was way up high in the department? What if he was District, even the Chief’s Office? There was no way in the world someone like that would be seen around Paladino. If that was the case, then this was a hide into nowhere. If he did not know the identity of Sandià’s other source, then . . .

Madigan shifted in the seat. He glanced back over his shoulder and caught something move in the corner of his eye.

He turned back.

A car drew to a halt a half block up ahead. It was a nondescript sedan, precisely the kind of vehicle provided for duty use from the car pool. Would make sense to use a car pool vehicle. Just as Madigan had said to Sandià about the second source, offense was the best form of defense. Be seen down here in something other than a PD vehicle and it would raise more questions. In a PD vehicle you would be on nothing but PD business, right? Who would be dumb enough to make a personal visit to Sandià’s territory in their own car?

Madigan ducked down instinctively, despite the fact that the car had pulled to a stop facing in the opposite direction. He waited. He watched. He wished he had binoculars. He did have his cellphone. He could at least take some snaps of the car and its occupant.

Madigan worked his hand into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved the phone. He got it set up just as the sedan door opened.

A foot on the street, a hand on the roof as the driver pulled himself up and out.

Madigan was unable to take a picture.

He froze. He could not believe his eyes.

He took two or three pictures then—rapid-fire—and then the
phone slipped from his hands and clattered into the footwell. He left it there as he watched the occupant lock the door of the sedan and start across the street toward Sandià’s building. Jesus Christ Al-fucking-mighty.

Madigan was breathless, speechless, utterly dismayed. There was no way in the world he would ever have suspected this man of being in Sandià’s employ . . . But then there had to be a good few people at the precinct who would have said the same thing about Madigan.

Madigan leaned back. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He reached for another cigarette and lit it, almost immediately grinding it out in the ashtray.

Okay. Okay. He had to get his thoughts together. He had to arrange things. He had to work out what he was going to do and how he was going to do it. He needed to speak to Bernie, to Walsh . . . He needed to get Sandià’s money out of the house and prepare for what was happening next.

Jesus Christ Almighty.

Madigan struggled with it. He could not refute the evidence of his own eyes. But it made as much sense as anything else. This man had access to every case that was being worked on. Any file, any document, any report. And his viewing of such things would not be questioned in any way. This man was in a perfect position to provide Sandià with anything he needed.

The only question that then troubled him was whether this second insider knew of Madigan’s relationship with Sandià. Surely not. Surely Sandià was not so dumb as to compromise his contacts by informing one of the other’s existence? Madigan felt sure that Sandià would not have done this. After all, he had known nothing of this man, had he? Above and beyond everything, Sandià was a businessman. The extent of his influence and control was determined solely by what he knew and what others did not.

Madigan started the car. He pulled away and headed back to the rental site. By one he was away again. He had to make some calls, pay some visits, share some words with Walsh about the next stage of his operation.

Bernie Tomczak was about ready to die of loneliness by the time Madigan showed up at the motel.

“Jesus Christ, Vincent, how long are you gonna keep me holed up in this fleabag freakin’ joint?”

“Calm down, Bernie. We’re going to go out. We’re going to get a drink, get something to eat, and we’re going to talk. There’s something I need you to do for me, and I need you to be straight and clearheaded and calm about this.”

“What thing? What do you want me to do?”

“Get your jacket,” Madigan said.

Bernie did so, slipped it on, followed Madigan out of the motel to the car.

They drove north, away from Mott Haven toward the Bronx, and then Madigan headed west toward High Bridge. He wanted to be away from home, away from anyone who might recognize either himself or Bernie Tomczak.

Madigan pulled over and they walked a block or two. He chose a nondescript diner near John Mullaly Park. He ordered a turkey and white cheddar sub. Bernie said he’d have the same. Madigan asked for fries as well, a side salad, a couple of beers. He had an appetite. It felt good to have an appetite. He wondered whether it was because he was off the pills.

The food came, the beer also.

Bernie held up the bottle. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “You’re drinking barley pop now? What the hell is going on with you?”

“Shut your mouth unless you’re putting food in it,” Madigan replied. “We eat, then we talk.”

“Something’s awry with you,” Bernie started, and then he shook his head. “What am I saying? Something’s
always
awry with you.”

“Eat, Bernie,” Madigan said.

“Okay, okay. I’m eating already.”

Bernie Tomczak ate, every once in a while glancing up at Vincent Madigan and wondering what was going on behind the intense and unsettling expression.

When they were done eating, they talked. They talked for an hour. Bernie asked questions, Madigan answered them to the extent that he was willing, and when he was done Bernie Tomczak just sat there for a while in silence.

Half an hour later Madigan pulled over outside the motel in Mott Haven and let Bernie out.

“Speak later,” Madigan told him. “I’ll come get you or call you here. Don’t try and reach me.”

Bernie said nothing, merely nodded and walked back toward the motel entrance.

Madigan turned around once more, headed toward the Bronx. He wanted to see Isabella Arias. He wanted to talk to her as well. He wanted to let her know something of what he was going to do and why.

53
WATERMELON MAN

“Y
ou look like you slept good,” Madigan said.

“I found some pills in your medicine cabinet and I took one and I feel like crap.”

“What tablets?” Madigan asked.

“I don’t know . . . sleeping tablets, downers of some sort. They knocked me out. Completely knocked me out, and now I feel like shit.”

“You had some coffee?”

“No. I thought to make some, but I couldn’t be bothered.”

“Jesus,” Madigan said. In his voice was a tone of exasperation.

“Hey,” she said. “You can fuck off with that attitude. You’re not the one stuck in this crappy house on your own worrying about your daughter.”

“Your daughter is fine. I told you that,” Madigan said.

“I have to get out of here,” she said. “This is bullshit. I can’t stay locked up in here forever.”

“It won’t be long now,” Madigan said.

She opened her mouth to respond, hesitated, and then shook her head.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” Madigan said. He crossed the room and drew the blinds. Why, he didn’t know. All of a sudden he felt as if he needed to hide. The room was in semi-darkness. It changed the mood between them suddenly.

“Sit there,” he said, indicating the couch.

She did as she was asked, but resentfully. A couple of hours waiting in the car for someone to show up at Sandià’s had made Madigan stir-crazy. Isabella had been in the house since Wednesday. He had some small inkling of how she must feel.

But now, now it was all different. Now he had some small appreciation for the extent of this thing. Now he truly understood how much was at stake, and what would happen if it all went to hell. He was screwed both ways if he fucked this up.